The History of Economics Society is delighted to announce the winner of 
this year's Craufurd Goodwin Best Article in the History of Economics 
Prize.

The Craufurd Goodwin Best Article Prize Committee, consisting of Amanar 
Akhabbar (chair), Nesrine
Bentemessek, and Stefan Kolev, unanimously awarded the Prize for Best 
Article to Constantinos Repapis
for “W. Stark, J. M. Keynes, and the Mercantilists” published in the 
Journal of the History of Economic Thought 43(1), 2021.

Constantinos Repapis lures the reader into the works of the “not widely 
remembered” scholar Werner
Stark (1909-1985) by considering the intellectual exchange between Stark 
and J. M. Keynes on the history of economic thought and, in particular, 
the case of the Mercantilists which was dealt with in chapter 23 of The 
General Theory.

Born in 1909 in Marienbad, Bohemia, to a Jewish family, Stark received a 
PhD in political economy from Hamburg in 1934, studied at the LSE 
1930–31, and received a PhD in law from Prague in 1936. He fled to 
Prague in 1934 and, in 1939, emigrated to the UK, where he became a 
protégé of J. M. Keynes. Stark was a sociologist of knowledge, an 
economic historian, and a historian of economic thought. Keynes and 
Stark started a captivating intellectual conversation on the history of 
economic thought. This conversation is still very much topical for our 
community of historians of economics. Coming from the sociology of 
knowledge, Stark’s considerations help “clarify the link between context 
and economic theory,” Repapis argues. By considering published material, 
correspondence and other archival material, it appears that, in his 
exchanges with Keynes, the latter had first considered some linear 
progress in the succession of economics schools. Stark described such a 
vision as “a steady progression from error to truth.” (quoted by 
Repapis). By considering how economic theories fit in the issues of 
their time, Stark’s arguments put them into a different perspective, and 
aimed “to interpret every single theory put forward in the past as a 
faithful expression and reflection of contemporary conditions.” Repapis 
elaborates on Stark’s critical discussion of the Mercantilists case as 
expounded by Keynes in The General Theory. By doing so, the article 
bridges ages, cultures, lingual communities, schools of thought, and 
disciplines in an elegant and profound way.


Previous award winners can be found on the HES website at:
https://historyofeconomics.org/awards-and-honors/best-article-prize/

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-- 
Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak
Secretary, History of Economics Society
Associate Professor, The American University of Paris