[This review of Rothbard America’s Great Depression was originally published by the Foundation for Economic Education.] It may not be conventional to review the fifth edition of a book that appears several years after its author’s passing. But America’s Great Depression is not a conventional book. It is written with verve and aplomb. And its
In that Rediff.com item, Sudhir Mulji tells the following story: “That during the period of sustained unemployment Kahn asked Hayek the question: ‘Is it your view that if I went out tomorrow and bought a new overcoat, it would increase unemployment?’ Hayek: ‘Yes, but it would take a very long mathematical argument to explain why.’” This is the
From Chapter Six of David C. Colander’s principles-level Macroeconomics 5th ed., (McGraw Hill, 2004) is titled “Economic Growth, Business Cycles, Unemployment, and Inflation.” Appendix A to this chapter (pp. 157-59) is titled “Nonmainstream Approaches to Macro.” In addition to short introductory and concluding sections, Colander deals with the
This from an interview with Allan Meltzer published in the current issue of the Minneapolis Fed’s quarterly: “I think Chairman Greenspan does not have some overriding view of the world that he tries to impose on the data. Quite the opposite. He looks at the data, and he tries to figure out what is happening in the world and doesn’t have any very
Clive Granger is best known for his so-called “Granger causality tests.” Christopher Sims was one of the early users of this new statistical technique. He explains its essence in a 1972 AER article: “The method of identifying causal direction employed here [i.e., Granger causality tests] does rest on a sophisticated version of the post hoc ergo
Yesterday, I cited Granger and Sims for trying to convert a fallacy into a principle by introducing a purportedly more sophisticated version of the fallacy. Today, I accuse Granger and Newbold of abusing the English language, quoting myself from a 1993 essay : “Only in the early phase of [Granger’s] empirical innovation was it made clear that
In these recent remarks by Samuel Brittan , Hayek’s rendition of the Austrian theory of the business cycle is dismissed because it entails a “relative contraction” of consumption during the boom. We should note, though, that Mises rendition is different from Hayek’s in this regard: He repeatedly refers to the “malinvestment and overconsumption”
This piece shows that Steven Landsburg needs a better armchair. He writes concerning an increase in the minimum wage: “Sure, you’ve lost your job. But don’t forget, this was a minimum-wage job in the first place.” I’d flunk any Auburn sophomore who wrote this on an exam. Does Landsburg’s statement generalize into a dismissive attitute toward all
The economics of John Maynard Keynes as taught to university sophomores for the last several decades is now nearly defunct in theory but not in practice. Keynes’s 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money , portrayed the market as fundamentally unstable and touted government as the stabilizer. The stability that allegedly
Over the past several years, I have participated in a number of short courses on Austrian economics, and for some I was involved in the planning stages. The one aspect of such planning that stands out in my memory has to do with the issue of methodology. How should we present the methodological precepts that underlie Austrian theory? There seemed
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.