My latest at PBS's Nightly Business Report blog is up. It's about the miracle of the market and is a condensation of my series of posts on the American standard of living.
My latest at PBS's Nightly Business Report blog is up. It's about the miracle of the market and is a condensation of my series of posts on the American standard of living.
Greg Ransom asks for my opinion on peer review in light of the climate-gate controversy. I fear that my defense of the academic community of economics has caused a wrong impression. I never argued that academic research is a perfect process for rooting out error and promoting truth. [...]
|Peter Boettke|
The Cobden Centre has posted Kevin Dowd's recent paper on bank reform in light of the financial crisis.
Hat-tip to Anthony Evans.
What is so "Austrian" about the Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle? Mises actually asked that question in an article published in Economica in 1943. To quote him, "Why call this monetary or credit expansion theory of the trade cycle "Austrian" or "Austro-Wicksellian" theory? ... But why forget that [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Richard Cornuelle is one of the most insightful men I have ever had the good fortune to interact with in my career. The author of Reclaiming the American Dream (1965), De-managing America (1975), and Healing America (1983), Cornuelle has contributed greatly to our understanding of the 'independent sector' and the internal organization [...]
So a president early in his first term is faced with a recession that includes a stubborn unemployment rate. What does he do? Why he calls a conference on unemployment to bring together business, labor, and political leaders to figure out what should be done to solve the problem [...]
|Peter Boettke|
The Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines is publishing again.
The description of the journal is as follows:
Building upon the legacy of the French Journal des Economistes - Revue Mensuelle d'Economie Politique (1841-1940), the first journal of economic studies, Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines (JEEH) publishes interdisciplinary [...]
David L. Prychitko
Take a good look at Recovery.gov.
This 18 million dollar cite offers a goldmine of claims for those interested in rent seeking, questionable statistics, unclear sources of information, and best of all it's wrapped in an emphasis on the seen while failing to acknowledge the unseen. [...]
Even though everyone should read "The House that Uncle Sam Built" for the "medium sized" Austrian treatment of the Great Recession, if you're really in a hurry you can get the "express version" in 800 words and six causes in this little essay of mine at the [...]
The always interesting and frequently contrarian Scott Sumner has a new post discussing George Selgin's monograph Less than Zero, which is a defense of the productivity norm and its implied price deflation in the face of increased productivity. Sumner raises a number of interesting issues and George [...]
The latest installment of "The Calling" is now available. This one is about "Exit Strategies:"
Among the terms introduced into our collective vocabulary this decade, “exit strategy” is particularly notable It’s been around awhile but lately politicians have used it much more frequently. The older political use is associated with the wars in [...]
As everyone now knows, President Obama has committed the additional troops to fight the war in Afghanistan. In what conceivable world is this a winning strategy?*
It might be useful to remember the Soviet War in Afghanistan as we assess the US effort since 9/11.
Can we [...]
Tyler links to a tweet by our colleague Garett Jones: "Austrian "term structure of capital" paradox: high elasticity of derived demand + low elast of substitution in production."
I actually don't see this as a paradox. Investment decisions are sensitive to interest rates. But in making that point [...]
|Peter Boettke|
The Foundation for Economic Education has just published a pamphlet that Steve Horwitz and I wrote on the current crisis.
[...]|Peter Boettke|
Peter Klein links to a video of Douglass North welcoming fellow ISNIE members into the Nobel circle.
Remember this weekend in Chicago, they are celebrating the work of another ISNIE Nobel Prize winner, Ronald Coase. I'd say this fall has been a pretty good one for ISNIE members.
[...]
Roger Koppl discusses the establishment of a new journal in the social sciences --- Schutzian Research.
Several years ago now, Roger and I co-edited a special issue of the RAE 14 (2-3) 2001, to celebrate the 100th birthday of Alfred Schutz.
Given the discussion from the earlier post on [...]
|Peter Boettke|
New NBER paper discusses the determinants of an economics professor's reputation. It appears that quality of work (citation) determines reputation (scientific awards received and prestige of department/university one teachers at), while quantity of work determines movability and salary.
[...]|Peter Boettke|
The latest EconTalk is now available. It is an hour long conversation with me on my book, Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development: The Bloomington School (Routledge, 2009). I haven't listened to it yet (always have a hard time listening to myself, though I probably have been accused of the opposite on [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Steve Horwitz is in town tonight and will guest lecture in my PhD course on Austrian Economics. We will be discussing the financial crisis and the relevance of Austrian economics for understanding our contemporary policy dilemmas.
Over at Marginal Revolution, Alex Tabarrok makes the case for Irving [...]
Steven Horwitz
Over at his terrific blog Carpe Diem, Mark Perry links to my first post on things getting better (see also here) for the poor and very helpfully adds a table of his own comparing the hours of labor at the average hourly wage it took [...]
Hi, me again. In reading through some of the comments on my prior post where it was linked or excerpted on some other blogs, I discovered some folks were reading my post as claiming that the gap between the poor and rich was shrinking. It wasn't. My post [...]
As many of you know, this is a set of data I've followed closely over the years (as has Don Boudreaux among others). The Census Bureau just released the 2005 data on what households have (HT: Ariel Goldring) and it has allowed me to update my data. In [...]
Steven Horwitz
That's the title of this week's NBR blog entry.
Here's the opening:
During his campaign for the presidency, Barack Obama promised that, in contrast to his predecessor, his presidency would be a "science presidency." In his first year, Obama may well have taken some science more seriously than his predecessor, but one [...]Steven Horwitz
The cover story in this week's Time is "The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting" It's really a terrific piece that features some of the bigger names in the backlash movement (including Lenore Skenazy, the woman behind freerangekids.com, which in some ways started it all). What's particularly nice [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Over at ThinkMarkets, Mario Rizzo explains "What is Austrian Economics?" He explains the origins of his classic work with O'Driscoll, The Economics of Time & Ignorance, and also explains how in the New Palgrave, he discusses "current work" in the Austrian tradition. I think his final paragraph [...]
|Peter Boettke|
One of the most significant footnotes in the Austrian tradition of economic scholarship is Hayek's fn. 7 in The Counter-Revolution of Science, where he follows up on his point that every advance in economics that had been made during the past few generations was due to the consistent application [...]
|Peter Boettke|
The late great Milton Friedman declared that "inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomena." He said this at a critical time in our policy history, and his work on the history and theory of monetary mischief persuaded the bulk of his professional peers, policy makers, and the general [...]
Steven Horwitz
Multiple specificity/heterogeneity of capital: "Your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device."
(Part of a continuing series)
So the American Economic Association has produced the "Economists Calendar" in celebration of the 125th Anniversary of it founding.
Many readers of this blog (both those who consider themselves critics and those who consider themselves friends) have often asserted three things: (1) Austrian economists are ignored in the profession; [...]
One of my teachers, Kevin Grier, voices concerns with the monetary policies that quantitative easing implies --- including the Fed's ability to credibly commit to the monetary policy rules advocated. As Kevin says in the comments: "The idea that too tight of monetary policy led to or worsened [...]
Roger Koppl has an interesting post on the future of macroeconomics.
I agree with much of what Roger says. But I don't consider this trend progress in economic science. Instead, I think we have moved far away from the analytical agenda of coordination macroeconomics (Hayek to Leijonhufvud) and the [...]
Chris Coyne
Veronique de Rugy explores the answer to this question in her latest piece at Reason.com.
Co-bloggers Steve and Pete (Boettke) are quoted.
[...]|Chris Coyne|
Scott Beaulier and Pete Boettke answer this question in their latest op ed in the East Valley Tribune. Drawing on Adam Smith's discussion of the public debt, they conclude that:
Rather than erode debt obligations through inflation, the debt could be repudiated through bankruptcy proceedings. Like individual [...]
Steven Horwitz
CNN reports that the US Postal Service lost $3.8 billion last fiscal year. Delivering the mail is pretty easy compared to running the health care system. Why would anyone trust the folks who can't even deliver the mail to run health care? As usual, the basic idea [...]
Steven Horwitz
Want to really piss me off? Want to really piss off a college administrator? Here's what you do:
|Peter Boettke|
Alex Tabarrok discusses Stephen Landsberg's chapter on common knowledge in The Big Questions. I haven't read it yet, but I am sure Alex's description is accurate.
What concerns me is not so much Landsberg restating of the Aumann proposition on agreement, but what role the common knowledge [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Today is Sunday in the Fall, and in the US that means professional football from noon until midnight will be watched in millions of households across the country. And in the fall throughout the country one can watch HS football on Friday nights, and college football on Saturdays. So [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Adam Martin discusses the lies that the 19th century poets taught, and the truth that economists countered with.
Those re-entering the labor market are often finding that they have to accept a serious cut in their wages --- up to 40% less in some instances. Is this the market adjusting to clean-out the previous mistakes, or is this additional evidence in favor of the deflationary spiral?
Two claims are often made about praxeology. First, that it represents the method of Austrian economics. Second, that it represents not anything new with Mises, but the continuation of how the great economists in the past had in fact always done economics. Which claim is true?
On another matter, Mises [...]
Chris Coyne
David Saito-Chung has an article at Investor's Business Daily on how "Joseph Schumpeter spoke out for Capitalism."
Here is an excerpt:
In his view, classes did not form because of capitalism. They formed because people spent more time with other people of the same background, interests and social standing. Schumpeter argued [...]
|Peter Boettke|
That is the title of a recent talk by Anthony Evans, which is now available on video.
laconf09, Anthony Evans: "banking, Honest Money and the Free Market" from Sean Gabb on Vimeo.
[...]Steven Horwitz
No, not plastics.
It used to be that the stereotypical mother wanted her children to become doctors. If ObamaCare passes, she should want them to become medical lobbyists instead. If this monstrosity goes through, the lobbyists and rent-seekers will have decades of highly-paid employment in front of them. Plus, [...]
Steven Horwitz
Driving through the very leftist enclave of Ithaca, NY earlier today, I spotted the card this guy is carrying as a lawn sign.
One Nation, One Plan? Really? That about sums up the hubris of our new medical central planners doesn't it? [...]
Steven Horwitz
All you DC area libertarians might wish to know I'm doing a public talk at American University on Tuesday night the 10th at 830pm. The talk is in room Ward 1 on the AU campus. I'll be speaking on the Great Recession of 2008. I even have a [...]
|Peter Boettke|
November 9th 1989 --- forgive me if I still get choked up about it 20 years later -- is a critical date in modern history whose significance should never be forgotten. Those of us who believe strongly in the freedom of the individual and in the power of voluntary [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Greg Ransom linked to his discussion at Taking Hayek Seriously of this new paper in our comments, but the idea behind the paper might be too important to be left to the comments.
What do you think of the claim that rational expectations macroeconomics was the intellectual descendants of [...]
|Peter Boettke|
The insightful and always intellectual curious and amazingly energetic Anthony Evans provides this link from FT.com.
[...]|Peter Boettke|
Paul Krugman provides his take on the Beckworth graph showing the collapse of nominal spending and relates it to his 1998 work on Japan. The upshot, monetary policy will not produce the desired effect in our current situation. Scott Sumner responds and continues to push his position [...]
Steven Horwitz
The unemployment rate jumps to 10.2% for October.
Yesterday, Congress extends unemployment benefits.
My intro students (thanks to Pete and Dave's excellent textbook exposition) understand that supply curves slope up due the opportunity cost associated with alternative uses of the resource in question. The higher the opportunity cost of [...]
|Peter Boettke|
James Buchanan was my teacher. I learned much from him in and out of the classroom during my student days. But I have learned far more from him in the years since. I turn to his works constantly for not only insight on how to tackle problems in economics [...]
|Peter Boettke|
One of the great joys of teaching at GMU is the constant flow of interesting students that walk through our halls. Some of these graduates have moved on to teach at U Conn, UVA, U of Penn, Carnegie Mellon, UC Santa Cruz, Suffolk, WVU, U of Chicago, and of course [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Richard Wagner's new book reflecting his effort at reconstruction of the main ideas of neo-Mengerian economics and its implications for contemporary social science will be published in early 2010. Wagner's last book Fiscal Sociology and the Theory of Public Finance (Edward Elgar, 2007) represented [...]
|Chris Coyne|
1. Claudia Williamson on P.T. Bauer as "development prophet."
2. Julian Morris on why we should blame famine, not climate change or inadequate aid, but on trade restrictions. Here is an excellent comment on Julian's article.
3. The White Man's Burdern Documentary Trailer.
[...]When I try to make the distinction between knowledge and information to my students I often use the internet as an example. There is a ton of information available, I argue, but very little knowledge. The transformation of information into knowledge requires things like interpretation and judgement.
Bottom-line, there is [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Peter Leeson's The Invisible Hook, continues to impress scholars and academic commentators. The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses his book and its contribution in the November 1st edition.
[...]Back in 1985, Dave Prychitko and I attended a small gathering of economists and public policy intellectuals at the CATO Institute awaiting the arrival of Mario Rizzo and Gerald O'Driscoll's The Economics of Time and Ignorance, which was actually held up in customs. When [...]
Steve Horwitz
Since we haven't had a good post on intra-Austrian issues in awhile, I thought I'd weigh in on the quickly escalating Battle of the Toms taking place out in the libertarian blogosphere.
Said battle began yesterday when Tom Palmer of Cato and Atlas posted a review of Johan [...]
Last week, Tyler Cowen linked to this discussion by UCLA economic historian Matthew Kahn on why progress in economics is so difficult. There are two claims made in Kahn's post that are particularly relevant to readers of this blog. First, there is the claim that economics is inherently [...]
Steven Horwitz
"I'm not throwing up and hungover, I'm just reallocating the malinvested resources of the boom."
[...]Steven Horwitz
I have returned home from the Southern Leg of my Liberty Tour Fall 2009. I gave talks this week at Mercer University and Berry College in Georgia and Loyola University of New Orleans. Thanks to Scott Beaulier at Mercer, Frank Stephenson at Berry, Nicole Youngman and Dan D'Amico [...]
Did Smith Deliberately Place “led by an invisible hand” in the Middle of His Tomes?
Here, Brandon Lucas and I provide fresh evidence that he did.
We say that we would put the probably of deliberate centrality somewhere between 60 and 90 percent.
What range would you give for the probability? Justify [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Tyler Cowen today predicts the future of the economics profession. What do you think? And if he is right, what does that mean for those of us who believe good economics is grounded in humanly rational choice theory and institutional analysis? Does the future of good economics lay [...]
Steve Horwitz
It's now up on the PBS-NBR site. A little snippet:
The irony is that bank executives weren't the primary cause of the crisis, the very politicians and Federal Reserve who are now on their moral high horse were. Capping executive pay may make them feel good, but the consequences will [...]|Peter Boettke|
The other night Jeopardy had economists as a category. The looks on the participants faces are priceless. I guess we have our work cut out for us in terms of cultural recognition.
HT: Jeremy Horpedahl and Will Luther.
John Stossel writing at Townhall.com stresses how free individuals can solve problems even in the most difficult situations. In making his argument, he relies on the work of Elinor Ostrom on common-pool resources. He also references the interview with Lin and Vincent that serves as the post-script to [...]
George Soros can spend his money any way he pleases. He earned it. But he insists that economic theory and policy must be rethought. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, and I also agree with him that we need to re-examine economic theory and public policy. His [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Tyler links today to this interesting discussion of what we have learned from 85 years of research on what are the best predictors of success in choosing new hires in the workplace. General intelligence is #1 predictor, schooling and age are at the bottom. However, an interesting predictor is [...]
Steven Horwitz
This morning brought the publication of my op-ed "Fannie Med" as well as the latest in my monthly podcast series at SLU. This month's entry is more or less a rehash of my NBR blog on the Fed from earlier this month.
[...]Chris Coyne
The entourage entered the bazaar. The Afghans sensed that an important American had arrived, and they began to gather in groups inside the stalls. Then the general stopped and turned.
“What do you need here?” McChrystal asked.
A translator turned the general’s words into Pashto.
“We need schools!” one [...]
In December 2009, Ronald Coase will celebrate his 99th birthday. Amazing. But this month, we also celebrate the 50th anniversary of his brilliant article on the Federal Communications Commission published in Vol. 2 of the Journal of Law and Economics in October 1959.
Readers of this blog should concentrate their [...]
Late last night I stayed up talking with Will Wilkinson about blogging and the future of the intellectual culture that we live in. At one point, Will said that listening to me all he hears is "I don't like the music those young kids are playing. You just [...]
Many good efforts, but ultimately the judgement is "Stewart" won the contest. Please contact Peter Boettke's office to get your signed copy of Challenging Institutional Analysis and Development (Routledge, 2009).
|Peter Boettke|
John Stossel at TownHall explains why self-regulation and self-government is not the same as state regulation and government planning.
Steven Horwitz
I started this as a long comment on the Hayek and deflation thread, but figured I'd make it separate post.
Yes, during 1920-21 we had deflation and yes we didn't have a Great Depression. But we did have a significant drop in GDP and unemployment of around 12%, [...]
Scott has already talked about this at The Economic Way of Thinking, but we should dig a bit deeper into the discussion from Smith's Wealth of Nations, Vol. 2, pp. 929-2930. Smith argues in those pages that: (1) when the public debt reaches a certain level, the fiscal [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Liya Palagashvili, Vice President of GMU's Economic Society, published an op-ed today in the Philadelphia Inquirer on the health care debate. Liya is a former student and is one of the true gems of the GMU economic community -- smart, high energy, and friendly. [...]
Steve Horwitz
Greg Ransom has found a new book with an interview done with Hayek in 1979. In it, Hayek says the following:
“I agree with Milton Friedman that once the Crash had occurred, the Federal Reserve System pursued a silly deflationary policy. I am not only against inflation but I am [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Tomorrow (Monday) my Econ 880 (Austrian Theory of the Market Process I) graduate student class will be discussing 'profits, interest and investment'. Not Hayek's book per se, but the range of topics. This is also a stretch for me since this isn't my area [...]
|Peter Boettke|
Readers of the blog know that I think VERY highly of the work of Pete Leeson and I have linked to the various reviews and discussions of his The Invisible Hook. I have insisted that Pete's work is not "cuteonomics" but a substance exploration [...]
|Peter Boettke|
They come from Vincent Ostrom's The Meaning of Democracy and the Vulnerability of Democracies: A Response to Tocqueville's Challenge (University of Michigan Press, 1997, pp. 3-4; 114-115).
"... it is all too apparent that financial obligations associated with social entitlements intended to solve welfare problems and advance public welfare threaten the [...]