The contribution of the history of economic thought and economic history to the development of economics in the Third Polish Republic. A concise overview of academic centres, research output, and international impact

Abstract

Economic history and history of economic thought have had to contend with a crisis of a didactic and scientific nature since the beginning of the shift from a command economy to a free-market system in Poland, and the accompanying legal and constitutional changes have compounded these difficulties. The Law on Higher Education and Science reclassified academic fields and disciplines, with the result that history was placed in the humanities and economics and finance were placed in the social sciences. This paper aims to show the contribution of these two subdisciplines to the development of economics in Poland over the last 30 years. The present authors contend that the waning didactic significance of these two sub-disciplines at economics and history faculties, and the subsequent liquidation or absorption of many university departments devoted to them, has not impeded valuable research in these fields in Poland. The article not only presents the teaching, research and publishing activities of the existing academic institutions and faculties, but also shows the international influence of academicians and their teaching work, and examines the market for textbooks and synthetic works.

Keywords

• history of economic thought
• economic history
• textbooks
• history of economics
• research in poland