Introduction

The thirteen papers in this conference volume cover a wide range of topics. They can be broadly categorized into three groups. Six of the papers deal with money and exchange rates. Five of them tackle problems of international trade theory and commercial policy. The remaining two papers examine the relationship between competition and economic growth, as well as the issues of welfare economics, economic order, and competition. Many of the ideas developed in this volume have already been treated in Egon Sohmen’s works. This demonstrates that his basic concepts and ideas are still very much alive and, moreover, can provide useful insights into the problems that economists face nowadays. Sohmen was truly a leader in the field and has inspired many economists to continue his work. Therefore, this volume can be seen not only as an attempt to apply Egon Sohmen’s most important ideas and theories to current economic issues but also as encouragement to direct additional research towards developing these ideas further. In the remainder of this introduction I will briefly summarize the different contributions to this volume.