Cartels as Efficient Productive Structures
Pascal Salin
Cartels are considered to be specific productive structures which allow producers to exert a monopoly power. Evaluation of the working of cartels is thus closely linked to the theory of competition and monopoly which one adopts.
The Myth of Natural Monopoly
Thomas J. DiLorenzo
The very term “public utility”. . . is an absurd one. Every good is useful “to the public,” and almost every good . . . may be considered “necessary.” Any designation of a few industries as “public utilities” is completely arbitrary and unjustified.
—Murray Rothbard, Power and Market
New Light on the Prehistory of the Theory of Banking and the School of Salamanca
Jesús Huerta de Soto
As is known, Murray N. Rothbard was one of the theorists who defended with the most creativity and coherence the need for free banking subject to general legal principles, in other words, banking with a cash ratio of 100 percent of demand deposits.
In Defense of Fiduciary Media—or, We are Not Devo(lutionists), We are Misesians![1]
George Selgin and Lawrence H. White
The Murray Rothbard both of us knew was committed to a frank and vigorous contest of ideas. He understood that an expression of disagreement was not an expression of disrespect—quite the contrary.
Central Banking, Free Banking, and Financial Crises
Roger W. Garrison
A growing literature explores the concept of free banking on both a theoretical and an historical basis. George Selgin (1988) sets out the theory of free banking and makes a compelling case that, despite the uniqueness of money, the forces of supply and demand are more conducive to monetary stability, correctly understood, than are the edicts of a central bank.
Who Owes What, and To Whom? Public Debt, Ricardian Equivalence, and Governmental Form
Richard E. Wagner
The postwar literature on public debt has been concerned primarily with two related issues: (1) whether public debt allows the cost of government to be shifted forward onto future generations and (2) whether the creation of public debt involves a positive net wealth effect.
Reflections on the Misesian Legacy in Economics
Israel M. Kirzner
As I begin this paper for the issue of the Review of Austrian Economics published in honor of the memory of Murray N. Rothbard, my mind goes back over 40 years, to the first time that I met him. It was at the opening session of the Seminar in Economic Theory which Professor Mises conducted in the fall semester of 1954. That occasion was also my first meeting with Ludwig von Mises, and it is etched deeply in my memory. Two statements by Mises at that seminar meeting stand out in my recollection.
A Theory of the Theory of Public Goods
Randall G. Holcombe
A public good, as defined by economic theory, is a good that, once produced, can be consumed by an additional consumer at no additional cost. A second characteristic is sometimes added, specifying that consumers cannot be excluded from consuming the public good once it is produced.
Knowledge, Judgment, and the Use of Property
Jörg Guido Hülsmann
Two Interpretations of the Causes of the Socialist Disaster
In recent years, the socialist calculation debate of the 1920s and 1930s has attracted anew the interest of thinkers in the Austrian tradition. With the breakdown of the Soviet empire Ludwig von Mises’s claim that socialism as an economic system is impossible has received a somewhat late empirical confirmation. However, modern Austrian economists are far from sharing a common interpretation of the issue.
On Certainty and Uncertainty, Or: How Rational Can Our Expectations Be?
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
The honest historicist would have to say: Nothing can be asserted about the future.
Ludwig von Mises1
The future is to all of us unknowable.
