The archive.

Full employment is both the achievement and, in Josef Herbert Fürth’s account, the vulnerability of Germany’s economic policy: once unemployment disappears, workers gain the bargaining power to demand higher wages. In this brief 1939 round-table contribution to “Divergencies in the Development of Recovery in Various Countries,” Fürth asks whether democracies can borrow that policy without importing its coercion. Italy’s unsuccessful imitation complicates any simple recipe for recovery, but his central concern is the suppression of wage demands through censorship, the destruction of independent labour organizations, and force. His argument offers a pointed test of policy transfer: not merely whether public spending creates jobs, but whether the controls used to sustain the result can coexist with civil rights.

Exchange stabilization could protect a currency while obstructing economic recovery. In this 1947 review of H. M. H. A. van der Valk’s study of British and Dutch monetary policy, Josef Herbert Fürth examines why similar instruments produced different effects: Dutch banks’ flexible cash ratios made additional sterilization potentially excessive, whereas British intervention accommodated cheap credit. His interest lies in the banking mechanisms behind policy outcomes—and in whether the study’s recommendations follow consistently from its explanations. He questions its contrasting treatment of low interest rates and national versus international priorities, while finding practical lessons for the newly established International Monetary Fund. This compact review offers a concrete comparison of exchange management and domestic credit, sharpened by the unresolved question of who should control monetary policy.

When does a theory of international development explain trade and lending, rather than merely rename their patterns? In this 1951 review of Charles P. Kindleberger’s The Dollar Shortage, Josef Herbert Fürth welcomes the idea that countries’ external balances reflect different stages of domestic development, but asks how those stages can be identified independently of the balances they supposedly explain. His scrutiny turns on concrete contrasts: Britain’s presumed maturity versus America’s technological strength, and Soviet lending to satellites versus American relations with Latin America. The review offers a compact encounter with the demands of economic explanation: measurable categories, mechanisms linking debtor and creditor development, and attention to institutions. Fürth’s qualified approval shows how a promising hypothesis can generate research without yet constituting a verified theory.

How should economic advisers respond when events contradict their forecasts? In this 1952 review of two United Nations Economic Commission for Europe surveys, Josef Herbert Fürth distinguishes impressive statistical reporting from less convincing policy advice. American inflation subsided and exports rose where the surveys had predicted an inflationary gap and declining exports; West German performance challenged their preference for coordinated controls. Fürth argues that these errors reflect an undervaluation of credit restraint and market-price adjustment. Yet he acknowledges the advantages of hindsight and refuses to make market policy a dogma. The review offers a concrete encounter with the difficulty of testing economic prescriptions: whether disappointing predictions prompt a revision of underlying assumptions or merely a new explanation of the results.

Correct economic theory can still miss the revealing question. In this brief 1952 review of Willi Graf’s dissertation on trade between market and centrally controlled economies, Josef Herbert Fürth praises Graf’s command of the literature but probes what his account leaves unexplained. The delay between Soviet political hostility toward Yugoslavia and changes in trade policy, Fürth suggests, could measure how quickly planners revise their arrangements. Communist cost accounting likewise needs explanation within the system it serves, not dismissal as a distortion of market conventions. These concrete objections give the review its interest: Fürth shows how institutional details can unsettle a neat opposition between planning and markets, while retaining a qualified recommendation of Graf’s comprehensive treatment.

Showing that monetary expansion can cause inflation is not the same as explaining how to sustain employment. In this brief review of Albert Hunold’s edited volume, Josef Herbert Fürth accepts its contributors’ warnings about inflation and restrictive controls but challenges the sufficiency of their case. Postwar experience, he observes, includes high employment under expansionist policies and idle resources under policies prioritizing monetary stability—though American aid and shortages of real capital complicate the comparison. His distinctive contribution is this refusal to let either side’s principles settle an empirical question. The review offers a compact example of economic criticism that asks not simply whether a policy can fail, but under what conditions it fails and what a workable alternative requires.

Would cheaper exports necessarily earn America’s trading partners more dollars? In this brief review of Jürg Niehans’s Ausgleichsgesetze der Amerikanischen Zahlungsbilanz, Josef Herbert Fürth examines an answer that depends on how strongly American demand responds to price changes. Niehans argues for selective rather than indiscriminate price reductions, drawing on estimates of import demand largely from 1947–1949. Fürth welcomes the use of price theory and quantitative measurement but finds the statistical base too narrow to establish those estimates—and hence the policy advice—conclusively. The review offers a compact example of economic criticism that distinguishes a useful analytical method from adequately demonstrated results, without dismissing the inquiry because its conclusions remain uncertain.

Monetary policy can change the stock of money without determining how rapidly it circulates—or how much spending follows. This gap anchors Josef Herbert Fürth’s 1957 review of the second edition of J. Zijlstra’s study of monetary velocity. Fürth credits Zijlstra with clarifying neoclassical concepts and recovering neglected contributions, but asks what logically sound reasoning achieves without factual support. His pointed criticism concerns the book’s neglect of postwar national accounting and flow-of-funds research, especially work undertaken in the Netherlands itself. This brief review makes a precise distinction between clarifying monetary theory and explaining how policy works: velocity is not merely a term in an equation, but a crucial link between changes in money holdings, expenditure, and the flow of goods.

A central bank can leave its net holdings of government securities unchanged yet alter the economy’s liquidity by exchanging securities of different maturities. Josef Herbert Fürth singles out this implication of G. A. Kessler’s analysis as a warning to those concerned only with interest rates. His 1959 review weighs the Netherlands Bank’s broader concept of liquidity against the Federal Reserve’s flow-of-funds approach: liquidity accounts reveal changing positions, but not the flows behind them. Fürth’s judgement turns on the difference between possessing an analytical tool and putting it to work. While regarding American data as potentially superior, he credits Dutch economists with stronger theoretical and policy applications. This compact review offers a concrete perspective on what monetary statistics can explain—and what their users must supply.

A country can accumulate productive assets abroad while losing the liquidity needed to sustain confidence in its currency. This distinction anchors Josef Herbert Fürth’s analysis of the American external deficit in 1958–60. Rather than prescribing indiscriminate austerity, he asks which losses reflect weakened competitiveness, which arise from capital movements, and which signal anxiety about the dollar itself. His remedies expose a policy tension: restoring external balance must not obstruct domestic recovery or sacrifice alliance commitments and development assistance. Readers can discover why a current-account surplus need not establish equilibrium, why restricting foreign expenditure may fail, and why Fürth assigns surplus countries a role in adjustment alongside the United States.

Imbalance so defined is a purely monetary concept: a decline in a country's external liquidity. It does not necessarily imply a decline in the country's "real" wealth, abroad or at home.