Thursday, September 30, 2010

Resources for Austrian and Libertarian Economics

The Austrian school of economics has historically been a strong opponent of Keynesianism. Keynes himself opposed the economics of Friedrich August von Hayek, a major thinker of the Austrian school. I advocate Post Keynesian economics on this blog, and naturally think that Austrian economics has major flaws. Nevertheless, I think Keynesians should be familiar with their Austrian opponents and the theories of Austrian economics. There are of course different strands of Austrian economics, e.g., the tradition of Mises, Hayek, Murray Rothbard, the radical subjectivist thought of Ludwig Lachmann, and the more recent academic theory of Gerald O’Driscoll and Mario Rizzo.

Some years ago Gerald P. O’Driscoll and Mario J. Rizzo made some favourable comments about Post Keynesian economics. In their book The Economics of Time and Ignorance (Oxford, UK, 1985, p. 9), O’Driscoll and Rizzo argued that

“[i]t is evident that there is much more common ground between post-Keynesian subjectivism and Austrian subjectivism …. the possibilities for mutually advantageous interchange seem significant.”

In response to this, Paul Davidson criticised Austrian economics in his classic articles “The Economics of Ignorance or Ignorance of Economics?,” Critical Review (1989) 3.3/4: 467–487, and “Austrians and Post Keynesians on Economic Reality: Rejoinder to Critics,” Critical Review 7.2/3 (1993): 423–444. Steve Keen has also provided a critique of Austrian economics in his outstanding book Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences (London and New York, 2001).

I have provided a list of resources on Austrian economics below.

ThinkMarkets, A blog of the NYU Colloquium on Market Institutions and Economic Processes
http://thinkmarkets.wordpress.com/

Ludwig von Mises Institute
http://mises.org/

Mises Economic Blog
http://blog.mises.org/

Lewrockwell.com
http://www.lewrockwell.com/

Lewrockwell.com Blog
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/

Cafehayek.com
http://cafehayek.com/

Taking Hayek Serioulsly, Greg Ransom
http://hayekcenter.org/

Mskousen.com
http://www.mskousen.com/

Roger W. Garrison, Professor of Economics, Auburn University
http://www.auburn.edu/~garriro/

Crash Landing, blog of Gene Callahan
http://gene-callahan.blogspot.com/

Libertarianpapers.org
http://www.libertarianpapers.org/

The Free Man Online
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/

The Independent Institute
http://www.independent.org/

Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)
http://fee.org/

Library of Economics and Liberty
http://www.econlib.org/index.html

Krugman in Wonderland, William L. Anderson
http://krugman-in-wonderland.blogspot.com/

MurrayRothbard.com
http://murrayrothbard.com/

Rothbardiana
http://www.rothbard.it/

The Daily Bell.com
http://www.thedailybell.com/index.asp

Hanshoppe.com
http://www.hanshoppe.com/

Walterblock.com
http://www.walterblock.com/

George Selgin
http://www.terry.uga.edu/~selgin/

Selected Works of Mario Rizzo
http://works.bepress.com/mario_rizzo/

Guido Hülsmann
http://guidohulsmann.com/

Coordination Problem
http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/

Free Advice, The Personal Blog of Robert P. Murphy
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog

Axiomatic Theory of Economics, Victor Aguilar
http://axiomaticeconomics.com/

Free Association, Sheldon Richman
http://sheldonfreeassociation.blogspot.com/

Economic Thought.net
http://www.economicthought.net/

Marginalrevolution.com
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/

Catallaxyfiles.com, Australia’s leading libertarian and centre-right blog
http://catallaxyfiles.com/

Pickinglosers.com
http://www.pickinglosers.com/

Ron Paul Blog
http://ronpaulblog.com/

RonPaul.org
http://ronpaul.org/

The Cobden Centre, For honest money and social progress
http://www.cobdencentre.org/

Adamsmith.org Blog
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/

Adamsmith.org
http://www.adamsmith.org/

Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics
http://mises.org/periodical.aspx?Id=4/

Stefan Karlsson Blog
http://stefanmikarlsson.blogspot.com/

Soundmoneyproject.org
http://www.soundmoneyproject.org/

Ideas Matter
http://ideasmatter.typepad.com/ideas-matter/

Charles Rowley’s Blog
http://charlesrowley.wordpress.com/


Other Libertarian/Free Market Resources

Cato Institute
http://www.cato.org/

7 comments:

  1. Was just reading Abba Lerner's Economics of Employment. Noteworthily - one of the 2 people he dedicated it to is Ludwig von Mises; and he calls Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson a very good book - as long as you assume full employment.

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  2. Another Anonymous,

    The opening of the dedication is accessible on Google books:

    "To Harold J. Laski and Ludwig Mises, and the millions of lovers of freedom in between who are addicted to baiting "capitalism" or "socialism": ... "

    What does the rest of say?

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  3. It continues "...: dedicated in the hope that they will cease to tolerate "anticapitalist" tyranny as "progressive" or to fight full employment policies as "socialist," but will focus their efforts on practical measures for enlarging human freedom and dignity."

    A really fine book. Saw http://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpma/9908002.html by Matthew Forstater which convinced me to get it at Amazon. It was intended as "a lucid elementary account of Keynesian economics" - but it is amazing how much is in it anticipating today's MMTers.

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  4. Another Anonymous,

    Thanks for the rest of the quotation.
    I agree that Lerner’s functional finance is not neoclassical synthesis Keynesianism, where the budget is balanced over the business cycle. Functional finance is far more radical than classical Keynesian economics, and perhaps even than the Post Keynesianism advocated by Davidson, Harcourt etc.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a pretty good list, Lord Keynes.

    See also

    http://econlog.econlib.org/

    http://organizationsandmarkets.com/

    I look forward to reading more of your posts here.

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  6. Hi, do you happen to know where can I find for download Davidson's articles " “The Economics of Ignorance or Ignorance of Economics?,” Critical Review (1989) 3.3/4: 467–487, and “Austrians and Post Keynesians on Economic Reality: Rejoinder to Critics,” I requested them in the reddit scholar section but haven't received any responses... I'm not exactly eager to pay 50 bucks for them.
    Thanks

    ReplyDelete
  7. As I far as I know those article are not available on the net.

    Buying is probably is the only option.

    ReplyDelete