Volume 6, No. 1 (Spring 2003)

The literature on free banking has sharply altered its focus in the last two decades. While the alleged failures of free banking have been closely analyzed and shown to have been greatly exaggerated, the link to fractional-reserve banking has been missed in the literature so far.

Volume 9, Number 1 (1996)

The First Ground Zero, Ralph Pray; Healthy Marriages, Stephen Baskerville; Dialogue With an In-Your-Face Libertarian, Bruce Ramsey; Lafayette Is Dead, James K. Lambert; The Dubious Virtue of SUVs, Jeff Riggenbach; Deceit, Death, and the Pursuit of Power, Bettina Bien Greaves; The Polyurethane Revolution, Michael Christian; War, Crisis, and Character, Jo Ann Skousen; Lawyers vs. the Law, Martin Morse Wooster; Colder, Not Wiser?, James Barnett; Saving the Bronx Ecosystem, Jane S. Shaw

Israel M. Kirzner VENTURA Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Paper Capture Plug-in

Volume 12, Number 1 (Fall 1990)

A standard theorem in neoclassical public finance holds that income taxes are preferred to equal revenue excise taxes. Herbener (1988) rejects this theorem because the proof is (a) based upon methodologically suspect indifference curves and (b) must follow a certain conceptual ordering-namely the excise tax must first be placed upon consumers who are then given the option of facing an equal-revenue income tax and not vice versa. This comment demonstrates that indifference curves are not required to prove the theorem nor must the proof of the theorem follow a specific order.

So long as men are mortal, wealth must be transferred between the generations and so long as parents care for their children, the dominant means of doing so will be through family inheritance. The transference of wealth through family benefits bequest or and heir, strengthens family ties, and increases long-term savings. When the state intervenes in this process, it increases its coffers at the expense of the smooth operation of family, society, and economy.

[Originally published in the Review of Austrian Economics 2 (1988).]

Why do we have booms and recessions? The conventional Keynesian view is that recessions are a failure of consumer demand. Keynesians, however, are not entirely clear on why consumers periodically act in unison to reduce their consumption. A more logical answer to the question is the Mises-Hayck theory of the business cycle. The ideas of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek, central to the Austrian school of economics, suggest an entirely different approach to the business cycle from what has become the conventional wisdom for the last 40 years.

This is a useful, clearly written study of the philosophical origins of Menger’s theorizing in economics. As the author points out in his conclusion: philosophy has been an accompanying presence at every stage in the development of Austrian economics. Moreover, “Action, that leitmotif of praxeology, has in the Austrian tradition received a distinctly Aristotelian analysis. Austrian economics and a realistic philosophy seem made for each other.”