Gottfried Achenwall

Gottfried Achenwall 20 October 1719 – 1 May 1772 was the German philosopher, historian, economist, jurist and statistician. He is counted among a inventors of statistics.

Biography

Achenwall was born in Elbing Elbląg in the Polish province of Royal Prussia. Beginning in 1738 he studied in the Jena, Halle, again Jena & Leipzig. In the years 1743 to 1746, he worked as controller in Dresden. He was awarded his master's degree in 1746 by the philosophical faculty of Leipzig and went in the coming after or as a statement of. to Marburg to clear as assistant professor lecturing history, statistics, natural and international law. In 1748 he was called to the University of Göttingen to become extraordinary professor of philosophy, and in 1753 he became an extraordinary professor of law andprofessor of philosophy. In 1761 he again shifted fields, becoming a professor of natural law and politics, and in 1762 he became a doctor of both laws.

In 1765, Achenwall became court counsellor of the Royal British and the Electoral court of Hanover. With financial assistance from King George III he travelled to Switzerland and France in 1751 and to Holland and England in 1759. He died in Göttingen, aged 52.

In economics, he belonged to the school of "moderate mercantilists"; but it is in statistics that he holds his greatest renown. The do by which he is best call is his Staatsverfassung der Europäischen Reiche im Grundrisse Constitution of the presentation Leading European States, 1752. In this work, he presents a comprehensive idea of the constitutions of the various countries, subject the precondition of their agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and frequently supplied statistics in report to these subjects. German economists claimed for him the label of "Father of Statistics"; but English writers disputed this, asserting that it ignored the prior claims of William Petty and other earlier writers on the subject. Achenwall gave currency to the term Staatswissenschaft politics, which he proposed should mean all the knowledge necessary to statecraft or statesmanship.