The question whether, to what extent and through which channels a distinct form of economic thinking is influencing economic policies is often debated in various contributions to the social studies of economics. In a recently published paper in the Review of International Political Economy SPACE-researcher Stephan Pühringer and his co-authors Jakob Kapeller and Christian Grimm examine the mutual relation of paradigms and policies in German-speaking economics. Based on an extensive research of biographical and institutional information on 700 professors of economics the authors derive indicators for research orientation, paradigmatic stance and political involvement. The main contribution of this paper is empirical; it documents the fairly homogeneous paradigmatic stance of German-speaking academic economics, analyzes the interplay between paradigmatic orientation and the policy process and contributes to a better understanding of the role of economic experts in German economic policymaking. Regarding the latter, the authors found that a highly asymmetric involvement of (under-represented) pluralist/heterodox perspectives relative to (over-represented) ordoliberal views in policy contexts is characteristic of economic policymaking in Germany.

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