Timothy Terrell is the T. B. Stackhouse Professor of Economics at Wofford College and Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute. He is the Senior Associate Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. He received his PhD in economics from Auburn University. His research focuses on regulatory and environmental policy issues.
The Misesian: What was your journey to Austrian economics and the Mises Institute?
Timothy Terrell: When I was in high school, my father, who was a physician and a Ron Paul supporter, was interested in economic issues, and I guess that rubbed off on me. I wrote a paper in high school on inflation, and one of my dad’s friends who was familiar with the Austrian School lent me some books on inflation, one of which was What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray Rothbard.
That high school paper got me thinking about economics, and in particular, monetary issues. I think that’s a gateway into Austrian economics for a lot of people. When I went to college, I intended to major in engineering and get a minor in economics. I however had an increasing love for economics and how it helps me understand human behavior, and at the same time I kind of fell out of love with engineering.
I then went into economics full force, and I was lucky enough to meet Professor Don Boudreaux, and he directed me to the Austrian School, which led me to the Mises Institute. I then started reading the Institute’s monthly newsletter, The Free Market. At that point, I was doing well in economics and enjoyed it a lot, so I decided to change my career path and do economics full-time as a professor.
When I was trying to decide on a graduate school, the fact that Auburn University was near the Mises Institute was a big plus for me. I ended up going to Auburn for grad school and worked with the Mises Institute as a fellow, which meant I did a lot of reading. Of course, I felt like I had to do twice the reading that other students did because I was reading for my classes, but then I was also reading Austrian economics on the side. It was really eye-opening for me.
I branched out from my initial interest in hard money issues, inflation, and business cycles into other areas. The radical subjectivism of the Austrian School meant a lot.
TM: At the Institute, 2026 is the Year of Rothbard, celebrating his 100th birthday. Can you talk about the impact that Murray Rothbard’s works have had on your career?
TT: I’ve had a fascination with different aspects of Rothbard’s work. I did reading on his ethics early on, but I’ve most benefited from his incredible work on economic history and the history of economic thought. When I taught the history of economic thought, Rothbard’s work was central in trying to understand where these ideas came from.
The more you understand the intellectual history of economics, the more you realize that we’re rehashing the same issues, again and again, issues that people have wrestled with for thousands of years: What is a just price, or just wage? and the consequences of collectivism. These are not new issues, but they are still with us.
I’ve made extensive use of his book The Progressive Era, which Patrick Newman edited. I was digging through it, looking for something for my work on environmental economics, and I found a great story of the origin of the national parks and the conservation movement.
It’s a testament to the wide-ranging scholarship that Rothbard gave us. It’s a legacy I’m never going to stop gaining from.
TM: Speaking of your work on environmental economics, you’re spending some time in Auburn finishing up a book on the topic. Can you tell us about that project?
TT: There’s a lot of work that’s been done over the years, really good work, on what’s been called free market environmentalism. I had some exposure to that early on when I did my dissertation. I wrote it on environmental regulation and some Supreme Court cases that had been decided at that time and had an impact on environmental regulation. So it’s long been an interest of mine. I think that what I can add to the field is a return to first principles, bringing Mises’s socialist calculation problem to bear on environmental issues.
My objective is to take the socialist calculation problem and apply it to environmental economics. I want to remind people that when government begins to plan—and environmental regulation is really a variety of government planning—when government decides that it knows how to weigh costs and benefits, especially with these highly subjective issues like the value of the environmental amenities around us, that is a poor foundation for policy.
There has been good work done illustrating the benefits of entrepreneurial ventures in solving ongoing challenges in the environment, and about how private conservation-oriented projects can satisfy some of the goals of environmentalists as well as repay the entrepreneur for his vision and risk. But it’s important to remind readers of the inherent failings of government attempts to calculate these problems when it gets involved in making policy. That’s really the central thesis of the book, that there are other viable solutions to environmental problems that do not require government interference.
I’m not going to become an armchair climatologist in the book because that’s not my area of expertise. I do think I can ask some helpful questions, present some information, and offer some useful analytical tools, alternative ways to think about these issues and situations. That way, when they are met with pronouncements about the environment and government policies, they can understand that there are other solutions than government intervention and regulation.
TM: You play a major role in the Institute’s academic journals as the senior associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics. What’s your perspective on the importance of these journals and of academic publications in today’s world?
TT: I think that our journals and our scholarship are more vital now than ever before. I’m seeing other academic journals that are publishing articles that are just garbage. Sometimes it’s obvious that AI has been used to write the work, to the point where even the references are fakes.
We’re a small operation, but we very much have eyes on the material that we’re publishing. We want to foster debate that helps the Austrian School grow and maintain a high standard in a time when academic scholarship seems to be slipping.
I think we have a lot to offer in providing a serious venue for scholars in Austrian economics, yet most of our work is still accessible to a motivated undergraduate. This is the kind of work that we need to be doing to make sure that the Austrian School continues to grow. It is not just, “Well, this is what Mises said decades ago.” This is work that builds on that foundation but also makes progress.
We’re seeing new ideas still being developed. This is not just some sort of hagiographic effort to keep the older work alive. It’s pushing that older work forward and using it as a foundation for interesting new insights. For example, an upcoming special issue of the QJAE will commemorate the centenary of Mises and Hayek’s collaboration and highlight their intellectual legacies pertaining to contemporary debates on Austrian business cycle theory, monetary policy, and central planning.
