The archive.

A long-term security need not represent a long-term commitment. This distinction anchors Gertrud Lovasy’s 1937 article on international capital movements in 1927–1936. New foreign lending had collapsed, yet European purchases of American securities continued to grow: was capital financing investment abroad, or merely seeking temporary shelter? Lovasy combines evidence from major creditor countries with an account of how currency uncertainty, exchange controls, and trade restrictions disrupt investment and transfer. She argues that some apparently durable inflows may instead be readily reversible flight funds. Her careful separation of financial instruments from investors’ purposes gives readers a concrete way to question what capital-flow statistics actually measure—and why renewed market activity need not signal renewed confidence in foreign investment.

Can a party guarantee work and subsistence while retaining private capital and wage labour—and expecting national loyalty to reconcile employers and workers? In this 1938 English translation, Karel Engliš tests the Sudete German Party’s economic programme against the institutions its promises would require. His distinctive approach classifies economic orders by their purposes and rules of allocation, rather than ownership alone. That framework gives practical force to his objections: agricultural protection can damage export-dependent industry, while removing machinery from farms cannot create employment without costs. Engliš also asks who falls within the promised community of care. His critique connects unresolved economic conflicts with ethnic exclusion and party discipline, while exploring how democratic taxation and public spending might accommodate minority needs without breaking the unity of the state.

New documents can unsettle an intellectual biography without yet supplying a better one. In this 1938 review of William Robert Scott’s Adam Smith as Student and Professor, Hayek welcomes evidence that clarifies Smith’s economic thinking before his journey to France and challenges received assumptions about physiocratic influence. Yet archival abundance is not enough: poor cross-references, hard-to-read facsimiles and missing bibliographical guidance leave readers to perform too much of the historian’s work. Hayek’s distinctive concern is the distance between establishing evidence and explaining what it changes. This short review shows him weighing discoveries about Smith against the scholarly presentation needed to make their implications intelligible—and asking for a rewritten biography rather than merely an enlarged documentary record.

Logical symbolism can repel nonmathematicians through reverential awe as readily as through aversion. In this brief 1938 newspaper review, Felix Kaufmann praises the German translation of Alfred Tarski’s introduction for addressing that obstacle without demanding advanced mathematics. His judgement rests on concrete teaching choices: minimal symbolism, secondary-school prerequisites, and exercises that let readers test their understanding. The review offers a compact account of what Kaufmann values in an introduction to logic—not merely ease of exposition, but preparation for harder study and clearer reflection on research methods. His particular recommendation to researchers and students concerned with the methodology of their own disciplines connects an elementary textbook with questions beyond mathematics.

An anonymous attempt to promote Hume’s poorly received Treatise also generated a mistaken story about the young Adam Smith. In this brief 1938 review, Hayek endorses Keynes and Sraffa’s attribution of the 1740 Abstract to Hume himself: the pamphlet anticipates revisions published later in the Treatise. He then draws out a biographical consequence. The “Mr. Smith” in Hume’s correspondence appears to have been a Dublin bookseller, not the seventeen-year-old philosopher. Hayek’s concise assessment shows how textual chronology and a corrected identification undermine supposed evidence of an early meeting between Hume and Adam Smith.

A catalogue of books owned is not the same evidence as a list of titles encountered. This distinction anchors Hayek’s 1938 review of William A. Shaw’s edition of Joseph Massie’s bibliography of early economic writing. An omitted manuscript note records the sale of most of Massie’s collection in 1760, undermining Shaw’s account of its continued ownership. Hayek welcomes the printed volume but tests its usefulness against the manuscript: missing subject headings, cross-references and author identifications preserve knowledge that abbreviated titles alone cannot supply. This brief review shows Hayek at work as a exacting bibliographical critic, explaining concretely why a convenient printed checklist may remain an unreliable substitute for its source.

Economics supplies mathematics with problems, not merely a field for applying established tools: this is the distinctive emphasis of Gerhard Tintner’s 1938 review of R. G. D. Allen’s Mathematical Analysis for Economists. Tintner asks whether mathematics’ close historical association with physics and astronomy has narrowed its attention. Industrial location, monopoly pricing and saving offer concrete alternatives, linking economic questions to geometry, optimization and the calculus of variations. His praise of Allen thus becomes a case for changing what mathematicians study and teachers use as examples. This short review lets readers examine a reciprocal view of mathematical economics: economists acquire analytical methods, while mathematicians encounter problems that may broaden their subject’s customary priorities.

Would it not be interesting for any mathematician to supplement the well known and worn out examples from physics by some economic applications?

Economic regulation can defeat its own purposes when administrative resolve substitutes for understanding. In this brief review of Walter Eucken’s Nationalökonomie—wozu?, Emil Lederer locates the defense of economic theory in a concrete political setting: German economic control under the shadow of total war, with its faith in willpower and organization. He presents Eucken’s demand that planning respect economic logic, while stressing that theoretical guidance must be tested against actual conditions. Lederer’s distinctive observation is that the book addresses those wielding economic power more than rival academic schools. The review offers a compact account of why theory matters precisely to those who intend to intervene.

Assurances that economic planning can coexist with freedom are not explanations of how it would do so. This distinction drives Hayek’s short 1938 review of Findlay Mackenzie’s symposium, whose informative discussions of particular policies he distinguishes from its weaker treatment of comprehensive planning. His criticism draws on tensions within the volume itself: contributors repeatedly address liberty and democracy, while the editor concedes that war could disrupt a planned society more severely than one allowing continuous private adjustment. Hayek turns that concession against the argument for extending planning in preparation for defence. The review offers a compact encounter with his critical method: acknowledging useful scholarship while testing whether advocates have answered the institutional difficulties their own discussions expose.

Government price fixing poses different problems depending on who competes with whom. In this brief review of Arnold Horwitz’s doctoral thesis, Gerhard Tintner values precisely that comparative approach: minimum prices, maximum prices, and direct price fixation examined across competitive and monopolistic markets. He places Horwitz’s analysis at the intersection of Mises’s work on price regulation and Stackelberg’s account of market organization, while noting its engagement with English and American scholarship. Tintner’s praise also marks a boundary: imperfect competition, selling costs, and price discrimination remain subjects for further investigation. The review offers a compact critical appraisal of what a differentiated theory of price controls should address, rather than an account of the effects of particular controls.

Fewer corporate groups need not make consolidated accounts a less pressing question. That distinction anchors Helene Lieser’s brief 1938 review of Artur Wisswedel’s Konzern und Konzernsteuerrecht. She welcomes its compact, orderly treatment of consolidated balance sheets despite what she describes as a tendency toward reduced group formation or dissolution. Her notice records a precise evaluative priority—clarity on a still-current accounting question—rather than assessing Wisswedel’s specific legal arguments.

What makes a legal treatise useful to readers abroad? In this brief review of Guido Bortolotto’s Diritto del lavoro, Helene Lieser singles out the connection between coherent exposition and accessible legal sources. She notes its precise scope—private employment-contract law, with public labour law reserved for a separate volume—and approves its combination of references to statutes and decisions with reproduced legislation and collective agreements. Rather than debating particular doctrines, Lieser offers a compact assessment of how the book equips its readers, grounding her recommendation to foreign readers in its organization and documentary support.