Austrian School

Archive for Austrian School

Austrian Economists Photobomb Krugman

[UPDATE below.] Eduardo Bellani in the comments of my previous post tells us to look at the poster hanging over Krugman’s shoulder at his recent interview with Joe Weisenthal: In case people don’t recognize it, it’s clearly this poster: Looks like the folks at Mises.org are sneaking up on Krugman. Hey, I warned him not […]

Clarification on Methodological Individualism

On that great intellectual forum known as Facebook, there is an argument over methodological individualism. (I’m not naming names since, what happens on Facebook…) Someone argued that if the standard Austrian position is that it doesn’t make sense to say, “The US government bombed Germany,” then such a person can’t stop the reduction at the […]

The NYT on Filibusters, and a Note on Methodological Individualism

Scott Sumner has a hilarious analysis of the New York Times’ views on filibusters over the years. Here’s Scott (and I’m not indenting it because it would get too confusing): . . ============ Start Scott Sumner quotation ========== PPS. Here’s the NYT endorsing the Senate’s filibuster vote: In a 52-to-48 vote that substantially altered the balance […]

Gerald O’Driscoll: Fed Is the “Enabler” of Government Budget Deficits

From his recent CATO podcast.

The Misesian Approach to Economic Laws

For my current course on Basics of Economics: Action and Exchange (where I go through my textbook Lessons for the Young Economist), I “pre-recorded”* one of the lectures because I was going to be in Chile that week and wasn’t sure my internet connection would allow for a live broadcast, which is the norm. Since […]

A Policy Proposal That All Economic Schools of Thought Should Prefer to the Status Quo

[UPDATES in the middle and then at the end.] Once again, Nick Rowe has argued that according to the very model that Paul Krugman claims to be using–and I mean here, the full-blown model with intertemporal optimization, not the cruder IS/LM model that Krugman thinks gives surprisingly good policy recommendations, using the full-blown model as […]

Answering David Friedman’s Questions About Austrian Economics

[UPDATE below, then UPDATE #2.] In a recent post, David Friedman writes: Yesterday I spoke at a Students for Liberty Conference. Before the talk I had a conversation with several students who identified themselves as supporters of the Austrian school of economics. I asked them if they could explain what that meant by identifying a […]

Explaining the Success of the Keynesian Revolution

A lot of times Austrian economists will say that the Austrians used to be really popular and influential, but that they were eclipsed by the Keynesians in the 1930s. Then they might explain this outcome along the lines of, “The Keynesian economists told government officials exactly what they wanted to hear: spend more money to […]