Among its founders were eminent economists like Gustav von Schmoller, Lujo Brentano and Adolph Wagner, who sought a middle path between socialist and laissez-faire economic policies.
On the contrary, the liberal publicist Heinrich Bernhard Oppenheim, critical of their "fanciful positions", dubbed them the Kathedersozialisten (socialists of the chair), meant as pejorative term.
[citation needed] Among its later members were prominent sociologists like Max Weber and Werner Sombart.
They took part in the famous Werturteilsstreit with the older generation of the Verein just before the First World War.
It publishes a monograph series, the Schriften des Vereins für Sozialpolitik, as well as two journals: the German Economic Review[4] and Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik.