Austrian School

Archive for Austrian School

Some Background on Capital Controversy

I am going to be putting out stuff in the coming month on why Thomas Piketty’s use of a neoclassical aggregate production function is so dubious–Austrians and Post-Keynesians agree–but if you just can’t bear the suspense, here are three links: ==> I walk through the “reswitching” controversy, focusing on Paul Samuelson’s excellent numerical example. […]

Compton and Long Beach Togetha on This One: Piketty Has No Clue About Capital

It’s rare that you will see Peter Klein and James Galbraith agree, but they do. And after getting my own copy of Capital in the 21st Century, I can join the party: Thomas Piketty doesn’t have the foggiest idea what economists are arguing about when they bring up concerns over aggregation in capital theory. Here’s […]

Hayek > Krugman

I focused on Mises in my Mises Canada post, but I also should highlight this part: Thus we see the where Finegold is coming from, when he claims that Krugman is clearly a better (or more important) economist than Rothbard, and that Krugman is indeed comparable to Mises and Hayek. It will be easier for […]

Mises >> Krugman

Jonathan MF Catalan decided I had too much time on my hands, and so claimed on his blog that Krugman is hands-down a better economist than Rothbard, and is indeed comparable to Ludwig von Mises. At Mises Canada I provide part 1 of my response, dealing with Mises vs. Krugman. Later I’ll do Rothbard vs. […]

One Last Push: Mises Academy Class on Government Intervention

SPECIAL OFFER! Mises Academy

If you sign up for my online class on government intervention (which covers the last third of my textbook, Lessons for the Young Economist) before the first class begins–which is Thursday, April 24, 5:30pm Eastern–then you get FREE access to the first two classes in the series. (Those classes cover the first 2/3 of the […]

Austrian Business Cycle Theory Surprisingly Useful Even Among Its Critics

The theory of business cycles advanced by Ludwig von Mises (and refined by Friedrich Hayek, who won the Nobel partially for this work) explains the typical recession as the inevitable result from a preceding, and unsustainable, boom period. The cause of the boom is artificially low interest rates, which in turn are caused by the […]

Privatize Outer Space!

Such is my rallying cry at Mises Canada. An excerpt: Notice too that the tradeoff doesn’t have to be between something cool and exotic on the one hand (like exploring Europa), versus something lame and boring on the other hand (like giving everybody an extra pair of dress socks). The oceans on Earth are hardly […]