The concept of Ordnungspolitik: Rule-based economic policy-making from the perspective of the Freiburg School

Jan Schnellenbach

No 21/7, Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics from Walter Eucken Institut e.V.

Abstract: Should economic policy be guided by rules? In this paper, we take the perspective of the Freiburg School and trace its argument for rule-based Ordnungspolitik back to the roots of the concept. In doing so, will not offer a comprehensive review of the literature, but argue closely along the works of Walter Eucken, whose works are central to understanding the founding generation of the Freiburg School. We argue that there are costs of not having rules and therefore that the main thrust of the Freiburg approach is still valid. There are good, empirical arguments for pursuing a rule-based Ordnungspolitik in order to avoid the costs of discretionary policy-making. Furthermore, we argue that a reliance on stable rules does not imply an incapacitation of democratic decision-making. Rules rely on democratic support, and rule-based Ordnungspolitik also leaves substantial material scope for discretionary democratic decision-making.

Keywords: Ordnungspolitik; Freiburg School; economic orders; economic constitutions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B15 B25 B41 H11 P48 P50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme and nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/234118/1/1757745726.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:aluord:2107

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics from Walter Eucken Institut e.V. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().