Austrian School

Archive for Austrian School

The Continuing Importance of Capital Theory

My new post at Mises Canada, which on Facebook I summarize as “Friedrich Hayek >> Scott Sumner.” An excerpt: Now if Sumner’s explanation were the main thing going on, there would be two immediate implications: (1) Booms are good things. And (2) Booms should naturally slide back into normal growth as wages and prices adjust; there is no […]

Apply to Mises U!

Since they always have more applications than they can accept, I am often remiss in “pushing” Mises University. But I realized maybe it would be good to get other people into the application pool, who might otherwise not even attempt it. (I checked and they still have slots, both for Mises University aimed at undergrads […]

More on Slavery and the Free Market

Since I got the sense that not many of you appreciated the full brilliance of my original post, I have returned to my claim that slavery could not exist in an otherwise free market. An excerpt: First, let’s switch contexts away from the emotional one of slavery. Instead, think about tools. Suppose in the middle […]

Scott Sumner Statistics: Trust, But Verify

I am being sincere when I say that I’m not accusing him of skullduggery, but I’ve noticed that sometimes Scott Sumner’s descriptions of the data lead the reader to imagine something far different from the reality. A good recent example of this is Scott’s discussion of his theory that it was (purposelessly) tight monetary policy […]

Has QE EVER Worked?

I ask at my latest Mises Canada post. On Twitter, Josiah Neeley wanted me to defined “worked.” I responded: “Economy was awful, central bank doubled (at least) balance sheet in short time, economy seemed fine, balance sheet back to normal.”

George Selgin Makes a Great Jon Lovitz

There was a funny Saturday Night Live sketch (unfortunately I don’t think they allow YouTube to host clips, since there’s barely anything from SNL on it) with Jon Lovitz playing “Frenchie,” who says really outrageous things and then acts stunned when people react. “Oh I’m sorry!” he exclaims. “Didn’t mean to offend anyone. Everything good? […]

Don’t Ask George Selgin to Dance

In a post full of his trademark pugnacity, George Selgin explains why he doesn’t consider himself an Austrian economist: I don’t want to belong to any economic school of thought, or to “do” any sort of economics. I just want to “do” my own sort of economics. And what sort of economics is that? I […]

Is Turkey Benefiting From an Attack of the (Visible) Bond Vigilantes?

In addition to claiming that the bond vigilants are invisible (i.e. nonexistent), Paul Krugman has also argued that even if investors around the world suddenly lost confidence in Treasury bonds (because of fears over Uncle Sam’s profligacy), it would actually be good for the economy. For Krugman’s argument to apply, a country needs to (a) […]