Austrian Economics

I want to present the case for the supply curve of loanable funds to be downward sloping, by analyzing the possibility of increasing marginal returns in the production function of money. I will first adopt a Mengerian approach to guide the analysis of the slope of the curve. Then I will examine the role of fractional reserve and collateral in the production function of money. After that, I will explore the role of securitization in the production of new loans.

This article considers how political actors committed to a moral value like equality can cause havoc with our lives if they choose to apply those values in ways that are temporally absurd or arbitrary. The central claim is that without considering the temporal structures of our political commitments our political theorising will remain indeterminate with respect to social practice. This claim is developed in two steps. First, debates on 'indeterminacy' in normative theorising are examined to develop a sceptical argument showing that a lack of temporal reference points can lead to a lack of certainty in the meaning of normative principles. Second, debates on time and social justice are used to illustrate how temporal reference points can link normative principles to the existential time of human lives in meaningful and important ways. To ignore these lessons about the place of temporality in normative reasoning is to ignore the indeterminacy of many of our political commitments and misunderstand the extent of our normative disagreements with others.

Money was not always the way it is today and its history is of great importance to understand its evolution. The currency went through several forms, from its conception to the model in which it is known today and which is not yet stabilized. In this essay, the complex

Transkription der erhaltenen Briefe, die Kronprinz Rudolf von 1878 bis 1888 an seinen Lehrer Carl Menger schickte. Die Briefe waren lange im Besitz der Nachkommen Mengers, ehe sie im 21. Jahrhundert von der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek erworben wurden. In der bisherigen Forschung fanden die Schreiben bisher keine Berücksichtigung. Sie bestätigen im Wesentlichen das Bild von Rudolf, wie es seit der Biografie von Brigitte Hamann vorliegt, zeigen einmal mehr seine gute medialen Kontakte und Einflussnahmen (via Menger), aber auch, dass er mit seinem wichtigsten Lehrer sehr viel länger in Kontakt stand als bisher bekannt war.

On 15 August 2017, India will celebrate the seventieth anniversary of its independence. Acting just a few years after independence in 1947, the authors of the Constitution of 1950 took the extraordinarily bold step of establishing universal suffrage. 1 All adult citizens-at that time they numbered 173 million-received the right to vote. With this singular act, India became the world's first large democracy to adopt universal adult suffrage from its very inception as an independent nation. We call India's move "instant universal suffrage," to distinguish it from "incremental suffrage," which is the more common historical experience by which the vote is extended more gradually. In nearly all Western democracies, suffrage rights broadened only over an extended period of time. Full as these rights may be now, their extension took place in anything but an instant fashion. We argue that instant universal suffrage has been key to India's national survival-a point that the vast literature on Indian democracy surprisingly overlooks. Yet instant universal suffrage has also weakened the state's capacity to deliver public goods. In other words, instant universal suffrage has been a great nation-building and nation-preserving tool, but it has hurt state-building and state capacity. The incremental extension of suffrage in the manner seen in U.S. or British history might have strengthened state capacity in India. But would this geographically vast and heavily peopled country, with its wide array of tongues, creeds, castes, classes, and regions, have been able to endure as a unified nation amid the prolonged disenfranchisement of large swaths of its citizenry? The answer is surely no.

Cezayir Dayısı Mehmet Paşa’nın ölümü ile iktidara geçen Ali Paşa Toskana Gran Dukalığı ile babası gibi bir dostluk antlaşması imzalayacaktır. Antlaşma uzun yıllar Akdeniz’de var olması istenen sükunetin devamı için oldukça gereklidir ve Cezayir Dayısı bu noktada Avusturya ile olan ilişkilerini dostluk üzerine kurmak istemektedir. Antlaşmanın imzalanması için Floransa’ya gönderilen elçi Hacı Ali Efendi dolayısıyla önemli bir misyonu yerine getirecektir. İşte bu makale, Ali Paşa’nın gönderdiği elçisi ve Viyana Sarayına yazdığı mektupların değerlendirmesi üzerine olacaktır. Bunu yaparken Napoli, Venedik ve Viyana devlet arşivlerinden orijinal mevcut belgeler kullanılacaktır. İlgili belgeler hem antlaşmanın imzalanma sürecini hem elçinin yerine getirdiği görevini ve hem de Ali Paşa’nın yönetimi anlamak adına değerli bilgiler vermektedir.
Babası Mehmet Paşa’nın sadece dört yıllık iktidar süreci onun trajik bir şekilde vefatı ile son bulacak ve ardından Ali Paşa yönetime geçecektir. Yönetimi ele geçirir geçirmez ticaretin gelişmesine ve asıl önemlisi Akdeniz’de korsanlık sorunu başta olmak üzere farklı sorunları çözmek için harekete geçen Ali Paşa, genç olmasının da verdiği enerji ile hızlı bir diplomasi faaliyetine girişecektir. Viyana ile olan ilişkilerini ön planda tuttuğu görülen Ali Paşa’nın kaleme aldığı belgelerde bu durum net olarak gözükmektedir. Bunun yanında Viyana Sarayı da Ali Paşa ile olan diplomatik ilişkilerine önem vermiştir. Karşılıklı olarak elçilerin gidip gelmeleri ve yine bu elçilerin gösterdikleri diplomatik çabalar oldukça dikkat çekicidir.

Ali Pasha, who came to power after the death of Mehmet Pasha (The Dey of Algiers), will sign a friendship treaty with the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, just like his father. The treaty is quite necessary for the continuation of the desired tranquility in the Mediterranean for many years, and the Dey of Algiers wants to establish his relations with Austria on friendship at this point. The ambassador sent to Florence for the signing of the treaty, Hacı Ali Efendi, will therefore fulfill an important mission. This article will be based on the evaluation of the letters sent by Ali Pasha to the ambassador and the Vienna Palace. In doing so, original documents from the state archives of Naples, Venice and Vienna will be used. The relevant documents provide valuable information to understand the signing process of the treaty, the duties of the ambassador, and Ali Pasha's administration.
His father Mehmet Pasha's only four-year reign would end with his tragic death, after which Ali Pasha would take over the government. As soon as he took control, Ali Pasha took action to develop trade and solve various problems, most importantly the piracy problem in the Mediterranean. With the energy of his youth, he embarked on rapid diplomatic activities. This situation is clearly evident in the documents written by Ali Pasha, who is seen to prioritize his relations with Vienna. In addition, the Vienna Palace also attached importance to its diplomatic relations with Ali Pasha. The mutual visits of ambassadors and the diplomatic efforts made by these ambassadors are quite remarkable.

In this paper, we analyze the concept of need that we find in the foundation of Carl Menger's value theory to then confront it with such heterogeneous philosophical theories as Ludwig Feuerbach's dialectic of feelings, Arnold Gehlen's notion of humans as defective beings, and Ortega y Gasset's theory about the role of technology and production in the human project. In general terms, these authors worked with the same notion of need that Menger used, but from an anthropological perspective. In this sense, we hypothesize that, despite belonging to heterogeneous philosophical traditions, the authors above can help us fully understand the concept of need in Menger, a notion that he did not develop in depth. In doing so, we attempt to show that this implicit content prefigures an anthropology that conceives human beings as primarily active and axiological beings. With this, we also aim to show the hermeneutical richness of the concept of need, as well as its relevance for creating interdisciplinary connections for future research.

Rational Choice Theory (RCT) has been central in social science research for decades, yet its intellectual lineage remains contested. This paper clarifies significant historical and methodological distinctions between two major traditions within RCT: the axiomatic, decision-theoretic approach emerging from Princeton, RAND, and other Cold War institutions, and the empirical, choice-oriented approach of the University of Chicago. Drawing on recent historiography, this paper examines why the influential historical accounts of Cold War social science consistently omit Chicago's contributions. It challenges prevailing misconceptions by demonstrating that axiomatic RCT, with its emphasis on formalistic and mathematically driven decision-making models, developed independently and often in opposition to Chicago's empirical emphasis on real-world decision-making, individual judgment, and market-oriented analysis. The paper also scrutinizes how scholarly neglect or confusion about these distinct lineages has led to persistent misinterpretations of both traditions. By distinguishing clearly between decision-making as control (axiomatic tradition) and decision-making as choice (Chicago tradition), the study enhances our understanding of the diverse intellectual roots and complex trajectories of Rational Choice Theory.

Marriages and firms share many characteristics in common. Both institutions deal with a set of promises between two parties and therefore need contracts to encourage individual parties to stand by their promises and commitments. Despite these similarities, in most countries marriage laws are statutory laws that have little in common with commercial contract laws. We present the Chicago and neoclassical perspectives on Law-and-Economics, with a special emphasis on marriage laws. According to this framework, it is possible to explain the way traditional marriage laws have regulated exchanges between husbands and wives in Western countries such as France, when these countries were patriarchal societies. We also consider the case of egalitarian marriage, and show some of the limitations of any statutory marriage laws. We then present a critical perspective on the Law-and-Economics literature on marriage. Our critique is based on the economic literature by Austrian economists and by public choice theorists. We emphasize the knowledge problem, the problem of interest, and the problems associated with government monopoly in coercion. Our concluding section presents some suggestions regarding a legal system inspired from international commercial contract law. By not giving any particular government a monopoly on the power to enforce marriage contracts such system would avoid some of the problems found in the systems of statutory laws currently regulating marriage and divorce in the Western world.

If you seek action, adventure, and romance in space, it is hard to top the John Carter books of Edgar Rice Burroughs. The first three books of the series-A Princess of Mars (1917), The Gods of Mars (1918), and The Warlord of Mars (1919)-are widely seen as the best entries and provide a rich world of characters, settings, and themes to explore. An unexpected-but fruitfulconversation partner for such a journey to Mars can be found in Ludwig von Mises. His 1957 book Theory and History: An Interpretation of Social and Economic Evolution is of particular interest to our understanding of John Carter's Mars because of his reflections on the development of civilization through mutually beneficial social cooperation and the nature of social progress and decline.

English Abstract:
This paper examines Venezuela’s economic history from 1958 to 2025 through the lens of the Austrian School of Economics, dismantling the myths of supposed prosperity during the bipartisan era and the early years of Chavismo. The analysis demonstrates that Venezuela never experienced capitalism but rather a rent-seeking Keynesian model characterized by chronic fiscal deficits, monetary expansion, generalized subsidies, and near-total dependence on oil revenues.

The study combines a historical review of each administration with a theoretical critique of incentives and the resulting human action. Empirical evidence shows that despite changing international conditions and oil price fluctuations, the underlying pattern remained constant: increasing public spending, external debt accumulation, price and exchange controls, and repeated bailouts that merely postponed crises.

The paper argues that Chávez and Maduro did not represent a rupture, but rather the extreme continuity of a rentier and exhausted model. Even during the largest oil boom in Venezuela’s history, Chavismo repeated the same practices of the “Saudi Venezuela”: fiscal waste, unsustainable subsidies, and the illusion of wealth financed by oil rent and debt.

The central conclusion is that Venezuela never achieved capitalism. Its economic history confirms that Keynesianism not only fails at the macroeconomic level but also destroys the culture of work, fosters rent-seeking, and deforms human action, condemning society to permanent dependence on the State.

Spanish Abstract:
Este trabajo analiza la historia económica de Venezuela entre 1958 y 2025 bajo la óptica de la Escuela Austríaca de economía, desmontando los mitos sobre la supuesta prosperidad vivida durante el bipartidismo y los primeros años del chavismo. Se demuestra que el modelo aplicado nunca fue capitalista, sino un keynesianismo rentista basado en déficit fiscal crónico, expansión monetaria, subsidios generalizados y dependencia casi absoluta del petróleo.

La investigación combina el repaso histórico de cada gobierno con una crítica teórica de los incentivos creados y de la acción humana resultante. Los datos muestran que, pese a distintos contextos internacionales y variaciones en los precios del crudo, el patrón fue siempre el mismo: gasto público creciente, endeudamiento externo, controles distorsivos y rescates artificiales que aplazaban, pero no evitaban, las crisis.

Se argumenta que Chávez y Maduro no representaron una ruptura, sino la continuidad lógica y extrema de un modelo agotado desde su origen. El chavismo, con el mayor boom petrolero de la historia, repitió las mismas prácticas de la “Venezuela Saudita”: despilfarro fiscal, subsidios insostenibles y la ilusión de riqueza financiada con renta petrolera y deuda.

La conclusión central es que Venezuela nunca tuvo capitalismo. Su experiencia confirma que el keynesianismo no solo fracasa en lo macroeconómico, sino que también destruye la cultura del trabajo, fomenta el rentismo y deforma la acción humana, condenando a la sociedad a depender permanentemente del Estado.

This article offers a Hayekian analysis of France's response to the COVID-19 crisis, exploring the tension between spontaneous order and centralized planning in a systemic, international crisis context. Drawing on Hayek's insights, we examine the difficulty for social scientists to conceptualize spontaneous and constructed orders in moments of emergency, where the pressure for immediate state intervention often obscures decentralized alternatives. We then turn to the specificity of the French case, arguing that France's intensely bureaucratic and centralized political elite makes it uniquely susceptible to planning pitfalls. This article offers a novel theoretical contribution by systematically applying the structure of Hayek's book, The Road to Serfdom, to the analysis of France's COVID-19 crisis management, what I would call in The Road to Serfdom Framework. By following the book's key chapters, this study transposes Hayek's arguments on the dangers of centralization and planning to the pandemic response, introducing, for the first time in the literature, a methodology that highlights the pitfalls of state centralization through a Hayekian lens. Hayek was particularly critical of France's legal tradition and conception of liberalism, shaped by rationalist and dirigiste intellectual currents that prioritize state intervention over emergent social order. This institutional legacy explains the rigid, top-down structure of France's pandemic management, which we document through an analysis of key public policy measures implemented during the crisisranging from lockdowns to emergency decrees and the extension of executive powers.

Innovation has long been recognized as a cornerstone of economic progress, yet its meaning, drivers, and mechanisms remain the subject of continuous debate. From Adam Smith’s early reflections on the forces of economic growth to the contemporary insights of Philippe Aghion, Richard Nelson and Edmund Phelps, scholars have sought to explain how new ideas emerge, diffuse, and transform societies. At the centre of this intellectual tradition stands Joseph Schumpeter, whose theory of economic development framed innovation not as an incremental improvement within an existing equilibrium, but as a disruptive, endogenous process that reshapes the very structure of the economy.

Schumpeter’s seminal contribution was to define economic development as the result of “new combinations” — novel goods, methods of production, markets, sources of supply, or industrial organizations — introduced by entrepreneurs and made possible through the creation of credit. This “trinomial” of innovation, entrepreneurship, and finance reframed the understanding of competition, replacing the static notion of price rivalry with a dynamic process of creative destruction. In this vision, competition is the struggle of the new against the established, a force that simultaneously dismantles outdated structures and lays the foundation for future growth.

While the Schumpeterian framework remains highly influential, the contemporary global economy presents new challenges and opportunities that call for a broader perspective. Modern innovation ecosystems extend far beyond the traditional bank–entrepreneur dyad, encompassing networks of venture capitalists, institutional investors, research foundations, and public policy interventions. Moreover, the role of governance, institutional quality, and strategic policymaking has become increasingly central in determining whether entrepreneurial energy and financial resources translate into transformative outcomes.

This paper emerges from the practical policy work of the Center for Market Education across several Asian economies, where the interplay between innovation, institutions, and development is not merely theoretical but deeply consequential. The present paper also serves as a theoretical introduction to our innovation policy case studies presented in previous works on Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as in forthcoming studies on India and Bangladesh. This paper is also the theoretical foundation for the quantitative analyses of our proposed pro-innovation policies, as presented in Desfiandi and Banjaransari (forthcoming).

Building on Schumpeter’s trinomial, we propose an expanded framework — the PPP model: Products, Processes, and Policies. The first two dimensions align with Schumpeter’s original categories of new combinations, while the third explicitly acknowledges the pivotal role of policy. In our view, policies can act either as catalysts that enable innovation or as innovations in their own right. Yet, crucially, no policy can replace the market’s role as the ultimate arbiter of success.

By revisiting Schumpeter’s insights through the lens of contemporary innovation ecosystems and our PPP approach, this paper seeks to serve as theoretical introduction to our different papers where we bridge classical theory and current policy debates. In doing so, it underscores that while entrepreneurship and finance remain indispensable drivers of creative destruction, the institutional and policy environment can decisively shape whether investments yield mere activity or genuine innovation.

In medical practice, teleology reminds us that every clinical act is an intentional action—relieving symptoms, prolonging life, or improving quality of life—and that praxeology helps make goals explicit before choosing the means. The subjectivism of value underlines that the “value” of a treatment depends on the patient’s preferences (tolerable pain, acceptable risk, life goals), not only on physiological parameters; a model far removed from Ecuador’s current public health system, which covers more than 70% of the national healthcare market and is generally perceived as lower in quality and abusive according to surveys and focus groups applied to users of the public system MSP-IESS in Ecuador.

In addition, a key point to consider is the cost the patient is willing to assume in a reality where the “means” are by definition limited—an elementary principle of economics. I firmly believe that health is not a positive right enforceable for everyone, as my country’s constitution, the university where I study, and international organizations assert, because public state-run organizations/companies that provide these services have inherent limitations in their very existence with multiple structural disadvantages, even if they were well managed; furthermore, their purpose is not wealth creation.

Initially, their existence in relation to the healthcare system should be limited to providing quality care to people with disabilities and diagnoses of catastrophic diseases in situations of vulnerability regarding their acquired rights and, in more extreme cases, to people in extreme poverty. The rest of the health problems should be resolved through the market, where individuals, through their entrepreneurial function, create cost-efficient organizations based on a price system, always seeking not to leave anyone behind, even if some who read this believe or think otherwise. Unfortunately, as of the date I write this paper, the current government reaps the meager results of previous administrations—this must change for the good of my country and society. “The solution is not to expand the public sector under state administration nor to combine it with the private sector.”

Regarding the entrepreneurial function, I must point out that opportunity cost warns that each decision uses scarce resources (time, beds, budget, care), and that choosing A implies giving up B; dispersed knowledge (F.A. Hayek) reminds us that much clinical information is tacit and local (social context, adherence, logistics), and that decisions must integrate that knowledge “in praxis.”

The entrepreneurial alert raised by Israel Kirzner, one of the economists I most respect and admire, encourages us to detect opportunities to improve processes—for example, fast-track routes such as telemedicine, AI for triage as a form of clinical entrepreneurship, etc. The axiom of action and limited means posed by L.V. Mises emphasizes that the clinician acts with incomplete information and that the means-ends structure organizes choice under levels of uncertainty.

To have better healthcare systems, it is essential to increase the purchasing power of ordinary people with a macroeconomic model where there is freedom to seek, contract, and offer medical care or products and services of any kind. Promote a culture of less state dependency among the masses, ensure equal treatment under the law by the state, and at the microeconomic level, assume in the best way possible the positive or negative consequences of our actions inherent to living in freedom—socially cooperating and associating with other individuals to offer efficient and timely solutions to real problems that afflict society, always courageously serving others with higher-quality goods at better prices: “be more to serve better.” Finally, something I consider important: we must dream that a better country is possible by the grace of God.

This article examines the role of tour operators (TOs) in ecotourism destinations through the lens of Austrian environmental economics. In contrast to the neoclassical approach, which considers environmental issues as market failures requiring government intervention, the Austrian perspective views them as coordination failures caused by dispersed knowledge, subjective valuations, and inadequate institutional frameworks. Using a theoretical-analytical method based on praxeology, the study suggests that TOs act as entrepreneurial coordinators who detect shifts in tourists' environmental preferences and adapt their services accordingly, influencing other actors in the supply chain. The analysis includes heuristic illustrations of firms such as TUI, Intrepid Travel, and Naturetrek, which promote sustainability through decentralised initiatives without relying on external regulation. These cases demonstrate how entrepreneurial action can improve environmental quality by responding to market signals. The study concludes that TOs should not be seen merely as intermediaries, but as institutional entrepreneurs with a key role in environmental governance. Instead of imposing uniform regulations, public policies should enable flexible institutional arrangements that reinforce property rights and encourage entrepreneurial adaptation. This approach provides a more dynamic and context-sensitive understanding of sustainability in tourism.

European Imperialism, Nazism, and Socialism, should be seen, not as the result of simplistic malice or stupidity, but as flawed ideologies that understandably made sense to many intellectuals and well-intentioned people. As 1974 Nobel Laureate in Economics F.A. Hayek writes:

"It is necessary to realize that the sources of many of the most harmful agents in this world are often not evil men but high-minded idealists, and that in particular the foundations of totalitarian barbarism have been laid by honourable and well-meaning scholars who never recognized the offspring they produced." (Hayek, "Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1: Rules and Order", p. 70)

Hayek again:

"Most people are still unwilling to face the most alarming lesson of modern history: that the greatest crimes of our time have been committed by governments that had the enthusiastic support of millions of people who were guided by moral impulses. It is simply not true that Hitler or Mussolini, Lenin or Stalin, appealed only to the worst instincts of their people: they also appealed to some of the feelings which also dominate contemporary democracies." (Hayek, "Law Legislation and Liberty. Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice", p.134

In this paper we show how both Socialism and Zionism were flawed ideologies which understandably fooled many bright people into creating failed and chaotic states via the Soviet Union and Israel respectively.

This paper is an attempt to define the law of economic surplus (ES) in action systems (AS). Categories similar to ES are studied in particular by economics, praxeology (forms of efficiency) and management sciences. These sciences attribute the long-term success or failure of AS to various sources, but not directly/mainly to ES. Profit/loss, as forms of positive or negative ES respectively, can be a source of success/failure of AS. These, in turn, have their own sources and conditions. So far, it has been assumed that profit need not be the guiding principle for the management of any (all) AS. None of the scientific theoretical concepts make claims that recognise and solve the broader problem of the sources of longevity of any (all) AS. I try to offer a solution using a praxeological and systemic approach, prognostic-diagnostic methodology and hypotheticaldeductive reasoning. I argue that the most important source of longevity is ES. The efficiency of the AS must always be greater than that required to repeat the cycle of action at the initial level and to make the necessary changes. Over the long term, a surplus must be achieved by any (all) AS. Civilisational success/failure depends on solving the problem of determining how to manage action systems and supersystems. This concerns particularly the proportions, parities and priorities in the mutual relations of the following: the activity portfolio, ES, non-economic values and goals, and security.

This paper explores the factors of success for the implementation of Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) and describes the process of GRB in Austria, Sweden and Spain. It was written on the request of the UNDP Office in Montenegro to prepare for the national Conference on 'Public Administration and Gender Equality' on 6 December 2024. This was one of the activities in the context of the global UNDP EQUANOMICS Programme to promote feminist economics.

In today's interconnected and competitive world, cross-industry knowledge transfer is vital for innovation, often yielding superior results to any organization. At the same time, organizations are increasingly called upon to foster inclusive innovation in order to embed fairness for economic and social impact. In this chapter, we provide a backdrop to discussion in the rest of the book, briefly describing our perspective on innovation as a business model design activity. We draw on a number of key, partially overlapping literatures - especially design, innovation, knowledge, sensemaking and business model - to illuminate how organizations can draw on the rich knowledge bases, reflexive practices and inclusive innovation action effects observable in other industries, people and the world around them. These literatures help us to model how the acts of design during the life of a business model can evoke a shared 'sense' of something greater than the individual, potentially transcending a singular industry character. Cross-industry transfer in micro-foundational terms, thus offers researchers and
practitioners a heuristic for actively developing principles and practices that draw upon relational knowledge bases and inclusively innovative intent.

This paper explores the conceptual links between Joseph Schumpeter's theory of instability under capitalism and both theoretical and empirical research that has been done over the past fifteen years in nonlinear dynamics. Recent work related to chaos and bifurcation theory is shown to be consistent with Schumpeter's view that instability is an inherent feature of capitalism, and that there is a positive, though difficult, role for stabilization policy as a result. The strong claim that modern research has proven Schumpeter correct is not made, but rather that existing recent research is not inconsistent with his views.

Esta nota pretende llevar a cabo un análisis comparativo entre las aportaciones teóricas de Germán Bernácer y Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk al problema del interés, poniendo de relieve los importantes paralelismos que entre sí presentan. Ambos autores compartieron la preocupación por explicar el origen y la naturaleza del fenómeno interés y basaron sus teorías en los postulados de Turgot. Böhm-Bawerk consideró la preferencia temporal como explicación clave, mientras que Bernácer señaló el sector de renta fija como origen del interés y propuso su eliminación para evitar ineficiencias económicas. A pesar de sus diferencias, y teniendo en cuenta que Bernácer fue uno de los primeros pensadores en estudiar y asimilar la obra de Böhm-Bawerk, cabe preguntarse si el economista alicantino puede ser considerado uno de sus continuadores y en qué grado discrepaba en realidad con su teoría del interés.

في مطلع القرن العشرين، وفي سياق الصراعات الطبقية العنيفة التي ولّدتها أزمة الرأسمالية وحروبها الهمجية، برزت فكرة عالم جديد داخل حركات المساواة. وفي مواجهة فكرة القطيعة الثورية هذه، برز تياران سياسيان جديدان أيضاً: الفاشية والاشتراكية الوطنية. وقد أفسح سحق الثورة الاجتماعية في إيطاليا وهزيمة الثورة الألمانية المجال لهذه التنظيمات الشمولية.
تتميز الفترة الحالية باختلال التوازن الاقتصادي، وتنامي التفاوت الطبقي، وانهيار فكرة المصلحة الاجتماعية، وانهيار جماعات المستغَلين أيضاً. ومرة أخرى، يظل أفق الرأسمالية غامضاً. الأيديولوجيات القديمة مُهتزة، ويسود انعدام الأمن والخوف، وقانون الأقوى يَعِدُ بالسلامة، حتى مع تقليص متطلبات الربح للمساحة السياسية "للإصلاحات". أمام اتساع نطاق القضايا المطروحة، تفقد معالم الماضي وضوحها مع نسيان التاريخ، ويتسع مجال الالتباس. تكتسب التحالفات والتقاربات السياسية قوةً من خلال استحضار قيمة مبدأ السلطة القديم. يبدو أن الانفصال الواعي عن نظام الربح وحده كفيلٌ بتوضيح الأفكار وفتح آفاق جديدة. في غضون ذلك، يبدو أن توضيح جوانب الحاضر المظلمة من خلال فهم أفضل للماضي أمرٌ حيوي.

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) 2007/2008 the sales of Road to Serfdom quadrupled, a clear indication of renewed public interest in the views of (neo-) Austrian economists on macro-economic crises, especially financial crises. It is also true that several economists associated with the Austrian school, or those using neo-Austrian insights, correctly predicted the U.S. housing bubble and the subsequent GFC, apparently, a clear vindication of (neo-) Austrian cycle theory . More surprising is that even relatively fierce opponents of neo-Austrian macro-theory have meanwhile begun to accept some Austrian insights. We thus ought to ask, what are the basic tenets of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT) and how did it enable some economists to correctly predict the U.S. subprime crisis and its aftermath? In contrast, it is also true that mainstream macro-economists, although struggling heavily to come up with a suitable theoretical explanation of the GFC, neither accept the neo-Austrian explanation of crises, nor its policy implications. Therefore, we also need to ask why mainstream economists dismiss ABCT. Is it the alleged neo-Austrian bias towards the supremacy of an unfettered market economy which is rejected by the mainstream, or is it rather the lack of correspondence between ABCT and the stylized facts of business cycles, such as the positive correlation between consumption and investment? We also need to ascertain to what extent the basic Mises-Hayek cycle theory can be applied to an explanation of the U.S. subprime crisis and the GFC? For example, the neo-Austrian economist Salerno (2012: p. 41) has stated that the unprecedented monetary inventions by the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) and the enormous government deficits run by U.S. administrations since the Great Recession (GR) must at some point *We are grateful to an anonymous referee for very helpful comments on to improve an earlier version of this paper in style and substance.

Praxeological economics has proven itself to be a potent source of universally valid insights capable of circumscribing and deepening our normative intuitions. In view of this, in the present paper, I argue that invoking economic concepts such as the general conditions of action, complementary capital goods, and long-term transactional relationships allows for articulating a critique of evictionism that is grounded in more than deductions derived from essentially contestable normative intuitions. By doing so, I intend to approach the subject of evictionism from the perspective of positive science, thus hopefully demonstrating that there is still an untapped interdisciplinary potential to be unleashed in discussions on fundamental ethical issues.

We are grateful for the comments to our article, and for the opportunity to respond to them. In our original contribution, we argued that the application of the EOE perspective could help make Austrian economics more concrete, relevant and persuasive, especially regarding policy prescriptions. At the heart of this perspective is the idea that entrepreneurship, when construed as the act of building an innovative firm, is an inherently collaborative activity. The comments have strengthened our conviction that the EOE perspective is of value for Austrian economics and been of great help in furthering our thinking on the matter. The comments have also helped us see how the perspective fits in with the broader tradition of Austrian economics.

, has highlighted the role of institutions in channeling entrepreneurial supply into productive, unproductive or destructive activities. However, entrepreneurship is not only influenced by institutionsentrepreneurs often help shape institutions themselves. The bilateral causal relation between entrepreneurs and institutions is examined in this paper. Entrepreneurs affect institutions in at least three ways. Entrepreneurship abiding by existing institutions is occasionally disruptive enough to challenge the foundations of prevailing institutions. Entrepreneurs sometimes have the opportunity to evade institutions, which tends to undermine the effectiveness of the institutions, or cause institutions to change for the better. Lastly, entrepreneurs can directly alter institutions through innovative political entrepreneurship. Like business entrepreneurship, innovative political activity may be productive or unproductive, depending on the incentives facing entrepreneurs.

El presente artículo de investigación examina el legado metodológico de Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, destacado economista del siglo XIX y pionero austríaco, más conocido por sus aportaciones de teoría económica, especialmente sobre el interés del capital. Tras una revisión exhaustiva de su vida y obra, se pretende resumir su contribución a la metodología económica, recogida casi en su totalidad en su ensayo Poder o ley económica y que comparte tesis comunes con pensadores tan influyentes como su mentor Carl Menger o los posteriores Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich A. Hayek o, incluso, Karl Popper. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk plantea en su obra importantes interrogantes acerca de la naturaleza de la ciencia económica y su enfoque metodológico. El autor propone una reflexión profunda sobre los fundamentos y principios que rigen el estudio de la economía, sentando las bases para posteriores desarrollos en esta área. Este artículo pretende poner en valor la vida y obra del profesor austríaco y, especialmente, hacer un detallado recorrido por sus aportaciones a la metodología de las ciencias sociales, un campo que deja innumerables caminos abiertos aún por recorrer.

El documento "La Teoría Positiva del Capital de Böhm-Bawerk" del profesor Martín-Grande, analiza brevemente la teoría del interés de Eugen Ritter von Böhm-Bawerk (1851-1914). Se explora su teoría del agio, que busca explicar la obtención de plusvalía/interés por los capitalistas, fundamentándose en el tiempo y el comportamiento humano. Este material docente resume la teoría del valor, examinando el comportamiento del consumidor y del productor, y la teoría del capital, incluyendo el proceso de producción y la formación del capital. Además, se analiza finalmente la teoría del interés, destacando las influencias de autores previos y la integración de valor, capital e interés en el modelo böhmbawerkiano. Este estudio/resumen, basado en la obra "Teoría Positiva del Capital" (1889) de Böhm-Bawerk y en la más reciente tesis de Hennings "La Teoría Austríaca del Valor, el Capital y el Interés" (1997), concluye con un resumen de dicha teoría del agio, resaltando su relevancia en el pensamiento económico austríaco y su contribución a la comprensión general del interés.

The opinion by the historians on the Industrial revolution has been controversial. The dramatic representation of the awful conditions of the English workers during the Nineteenth century affected public opinion and the way capitalism has been considered by the intellectuals and the general public as well. During the 50 s of the Twentieth century a group of scholars, under the guide of the leading Austrian economist Frederich von Hayek, challenged this representation. They refuted the idea that Industrial revolution made the life of the workers worse. The conditions of the workers were not better before the advent of Industrial revolution, and, in some measure, there was an improvement of their level of life thanks to capitalism.

This study aims to comprehensively investigate the critical role and transformative potential of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in driving healthcare innovations within the unique and often resource-constrained context of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Specifically, it seeks to identify and analyze key lessons learned from the region's pioneering experiences with early AI and broader digital health adoptions. Furthermore, the research endeavors to dissect the prevalent and interconnected challenges currently hindering Generative AI's widespread, equitable, and impactful application across SSA's diverse and complex health systems. Finally, it proposes a set of strategic, actionable future directions designed to foster the ethical, sustainable, and truly transformative deployment of Generative AI, ensuring it contributes meaningfully to improved health outcomes and health equity throughout the continent.

La obra Interés del Capital: el problema de sus orígenes de Germán Bernácer, a la que van dedicadas estas líneas, fue publicada originalmente en el año 1925 y forma parte de las obras fundamentales del autor, considerado por muchos como padre de la macroeconomía moderna y como uno de los más destacados economistas españoles (Savall, 1975; Velarde Fuentes, 1984; Villacís, 1993; Villacís, 2006). Gracias a la encomiable labor de la Universidad de Alicante fue reeditada en una cuidada edición en papel en 2023, dentro de las acciones de apoyo a la figura y obra del pensador alicantino. Acciones que incluyen la creación de la Cátedra Germán Bernácer en colaboración con el Foro de Debate Económico Germán Bernácer y la colección Biblioteca Germán Bernácer de Estudios Económicos, Políticos y Sociales de Publicacions Universitat D’Alacant, dentro de la cual se edita este libro sobre los verdaderos orígenes del interés, en el cual los postulados de Turgot y de Böhm-Bawerk se encuentran muy presentes.

Статья исследует трансформацию производства зубной пасты в СССР как пример эволюции советской плановой экономики и потребительской культуры. Автор анализирует, как государство постепенно включало этот товар в систему централизованного планирования, начиная с 1920-х гг. Особое внимание уделяется противоречиям между плановыми показателями, технологическими ограничениями и реальными потребностями граждан в 1960-е-1980-е гг. В конце 1970-х гг. власти столкнулись с проблемой дефицита зубной пасты, несмотря на рост объемов выпуска и значительные усилия, предпринятые для обновления промышленного оборудования. В статье показано, как советская промышленность, ориентированная на количественные показатели, не смогла полностью обеспечить конкурентоспособное качество товаров, что привело к дисбалансу: склады были переполнены дешевой пастой, а потребители искали качественные аналоги. Исследование основано на архивных документах ГАРФ, РГАЭ, ЦГАМ, включая материалы Совета министров СССР и отчеты предприятий, а также дневниковых записях и воспоминаниях.

Los diversos economistas neoclásicos y neokeynesianos saben que sus paradigmas están en crisis, pero la literatura especializada sigue esperando de las pruebas empíricas la sustitución de un paradigma por otro, mientras que los que debaten cuestiones filosóficas lo hacen con una gran incomprensión de los horizontes enfrentados. Hasta los propios austriacos se excomulgan hoy entre sí por cuestiones filosóficas, cuando, sin embargo, el debate de dichos fundamentos es la única salida. Va a tener que pasar mucho tiempo hasta que la economía vuelva a ser lo que fue, una rama de la filosofía moral y política dedicada a los órdenes espontáneos, para encontrar, justo entonces, caminos abiertos que sean además más universales. Hasta entonces, todo nuestro aporte seguirá siendo el humildemente austriaco, esto es, insistir en que los problemas epistemológicos de la economía no son más que un capítulo de la teoría del conocimiento; a saber, cómo el ser humano es capaz de conocer algo a partir de su ignorancia.

An important literature exists on bureaucracy. It deals with economic and political consequences. Many scholars analysed these particular organizations and different schools of thought provided their own interpretation of bureaucratic phenomena. Mises' theory of bureaucracy is known as being an important contribution from the Austrian economics school. However, the political dimension of his works on bureaucracy is less known. This article proposes an analysis of such a dimension.

Hayek ha sido conocido por sus contribuciones a la economía y a la filosofía política, pero es importante señalar que sus primeras preocupaciones fueron en torno a la ciencia. Y si bien dentro de las ciencias sus aportes más famosos tienen que ver con las ciencias sociales y en particular con la economía, no fueron las ciencias sociales aquellas que originariamente despertaron el interés en nuestro autor. En este trabajo intentaremos mostrar aspectos de la historia de sus preocupaciones epistemológicas y de sus publicaciones en torno a este tema.

After the WW II, the demographic structure of the European countries turned into a heterogeneous system compared to the pre-war period. In addition to the immigrant influxes following the war, the labor shortage that emerged especially since the late 1950s was also effective. Many European countries have encountered the phenomenon of foreign worker migration over time. Austria, one of these countries, has attracted attention as an immigration country that has a high foreign worker and naturally foreign origin population compared to its total population since the 1960s. Based on this fact, the aim of this study is to determine the current situation and problem areas of foreigners in the labor market of Austria, which is an immigration country. It has been seen that despite more than half a century that has passed, there are issues arising from both Austrians and foreigners in the problems experienced in the Austrian labor market. There must be a bilateral desire and will for a solution to eliminate negative situations. Both the Austrian state and its administrators and foreigners themselves need to try. Different groups of society, especially employers and trade unions, and especially non-governmental organizations need to take the initiative and assume a role.

Especially when an economic crisis occurs, as it was in the last big crisis in 2008, contemporaries tend to question certainties of belief systems including academic systems of knowledge. Paradigms evolve to become a subject of inquiry. One of those new topics is a claim to increasingly acknowledge history of economic thought (HET) as an important, although neglected, domain of economic inquiry. During the last decades, HET has mostly been abolished or has disappeared in many contemporary teaching curricula in economics. An – unforecasted – crisis teaches us the lesson that our academic understanding may be incomplete. The relative renaissance of history of economic thought is remarkable since it is the lesson of the 20 th century that economics forgot history (Hodgson 2001) for systematic reasons. However, can we learn anything by reading in HET?  The answer is that HET makes current debate less sterile because it embeds the matter into a flux of changing paradigms. Many brilliant ...

DEN HAUWE I gratefully accept the editors' invitation to present a few reflections upon Dr. Garrison's Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure. Since other contributors to this special issue of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics will critically discuss several aspects of the book, I will not offer an exhaustive and systematic overview of the book's content. After offering a few preliminary remarks, I will immediately pass on to discussing in somewhat more depth two particular topics. One relates to what I consider to be one rather questionable way in which Garrison's construction deviates from established modes of thought in Austrian economics; the other relates to Garrison's somewhat unbalanced treatment of the Keynesian and Austrian paradigms, an aspect that I consider equally problematic. Time and money constitute the blind spots of classical or standard economics. 1 Acknowledging this fact and taking it as a starting point for a renewed reflection upon the themes and problems that were of central importance during the important interwar debates remain as important today as ever. The classical model was essentially one of barter. Keynes and Hayek had presented two related challenges to classical economics: the role of money and the role of expectations. 2 Hayek had been clearly implying that Say's Law applies only to the natural economy and not to the monetary economy. Garrison elaborates on an illuminating metaphor Hayek had suggested in this respect, namely that "money by its very nature constitutes a kind of loose joint in the self-equilibrating apparatus of the price mechanism which is bound to impede its working-the more so the greater is the play in the loose joint" (Hayek 1941, p. 408). As Garrison (p. 52) explains: "The Austrian theory of boom and bust, which presupposes an essential loose-jointedness, LUDWIG VAN DEN HAUWE lives in Brussels, Belgium. 1See also, from a somewhat different perspective, Sapir (2000) Les trous noirs de la science ~conomique with the telling subtitle: Essay sur l'impossibilit~ de penser le temps e t I 'a rgen t. 2See also .

La province de l'Ontario a récemment voté une série de lois portant sur la gestion régionale de la croissance pour la région du Golden Horseshoe dans le sud de l'Ontario en combinant deux notions apparemment contradictoires-croissance et protection environnementale. Depuis une trentaine d'années, l'environnement qui était jadis rélégué à l'arrière plan de la planifi cation régionale est passé au premier plan. Toutefois, le contexte législatif de planifi cation et de croissance verte et régionale contient des provisions pour le développement d'infrastructure et pour l'extraction de resources alimentant la croissance, compromettant la protection des écosystemes et des terres agricoles, et instituant un agenda compétitif de développement régional économique. Cet article illustre les façons diff érentes, mais souvent contradictoires, par lesquelles traditions et positions de valeur peuvent être exploitées par les lois et politiques d'implementation. Dans cette étude de cas, nous examinons comment la nature devient un fondement ou pierre angulaire, lubrifi ant ou nouvel espace-état pour une planifi cation régionale integrée et centralisée, et comment ce complexe opère de façons contradictoires et trompeuses causant un mal continu à l'environnement non-humain.

Although IS/LM-based macroeconomics provides a link between the financial market and the real economy, it does not remove the veil of money from the financial market itself. It only explains the impact of the interest rate on aggregate demand. The interest rate, in turn, is also explained by aggregate magnitudes only, namely total demand for and total supply of money. Macroeconomics that rests on the IS/LM-model only highlights relationships between aggregates. It does not shed light upon the individual cash flows. Therefore, it also does not tell us what is the "real" counterpart of the cash that flows between persons conducting financial transactions. Except for the determination of the interest rate, the financial market could still be taken for a gambling casino. Considering the subsidiary function of the financial market in traditional Keynesian macroeconomics, it does not astonish that, currently, New-and Post-Keynesian economists construct models that displace it even more. They argue that the interest rate is, in actual life, not determined by market forces on the financial market, but ultimately by the central banks. 14 Therefore, as David Romer maintains, "for a principles-level treatment, one can leave out the money market altogether." 15 Anyhow, after what has been said it should be clear that the aggregative approach, no matter whether the interest rate is determined on the financial market, by the central bank, or both, can not help when it comes to remove the veil of money from the transactions taking place on the financial market.

Für die Analyse der Wettbewerbsfähigkeit Österreichs im Warenhandel mit den USA vor dem Hintergrund des möglichen Abschlusses der "Transatlantischen Handels-und Investitionspartnerschaft" (TTIP) zwischen der EU und den USA wurde eine datengestützte, qualitative Einschätzung der Integrationswirkung eines Freihandelsabkommens mit den USA in der österreichischen Sachgütererzeugung vorgenommen. Besonderes Augenmerk wurde dabei auf die Wettbewerbsfähigkeit einzelner Branchen im bilateralen Handel mit den USA gelegt. Wie die in der Studie präsentierte umfassende empirische Evidenz zeigt, wäre das Abkommen TTIP für die österreichische Sachgütererzeugung vorteilhaft. Der bilaterale Warenhandel mit den USA entwickelte sich bereits in den vergangenen 15 Jahren für Österreich sehr günstig, wenngleich Schlüsselbranchen infolge der jüngsten Wirtschaftskrise an Wettbewerbsfähigkeit eingebüßt haben. Diese Entwicklung dürfte anhalten und durch TTIP möglicherweise sogar beschleunigt werden. Freihandelsabkommen schwächen die strukturverhärtende Wirkung lokaler externer Effekte ab und können sich damit positiv auf den Strukturwandel in der österreichischen Sachgütererzeugung auswirken. Dieser zusätzliche (aber nicht sehr starke) Effekt von Freihandelsabkommen wurde in bisherigen Studien nicht festgestellt, könnte aber für die österreichische Sachgütererzeugung, für die in der Vergangenheit wiederholt eine Strukturverhärtung diagnostiziert wurde, bedeutend sein.

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of “Marx, Hayek, and Utopia” and “Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical” — the first two books of my “Dialectics and Liberty Trilogy.” This year also marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the trilogy’s finale: “Total Freedom: Toward a Dialectical Libertarianism.” This anniversary speaks not to a past achievement but to the present moment — and to the future of any movement dedicated to the creation and sustenance of a free society. I’m marking these anniversaries by summarizing each of these books and reflecting on their contributions to the scholarly literature. I also consider their implications — and what I might have done differently, if the books were published today.

Gerardo Milei, hizo apología de Carl Menger. En sus propias palabras: Es decir, hablar de la puja distributiva es casi como la exaltación suprema de ser un bruto, porque decir que el precio es un mark up sobre los costos implica que no se enteraron que apareció un hombre en 1871 llamado Menger y creó la teoría subjetiva del valor. (Milei, 2024: párr. 30) ¿Quién fue Menger? ¿Qué creó en 1871? El siguiente artículo responde estos interrogantes mediante una lacónica introducción crítica a la vida y obra de Carl Menger.

La función de producción de dinero bajo reserva fraccionaria tiene características peculiares que deben ser analizadas por las consecuencias macroeconómicas que puede tener. Lo primero que hay que notar es que en esta función de producción el output funciona también como input. Así pues, bajo reserva fraccionaria, cuando un banco produce un préstamo (dinero-crédito), ese dinero regresa al banco como depósito y éste servirá como base para otro préstamo. Esto no es común en otras funciones de producción. Cuando la Standar Oil de John D. Rockefeller producía un galón de kerosene, al ser vendido ese galón de kerosene, era consumido completamente. El galón de kerosene no regresaba a Rockefeller para producir cinco galones más de kerosene. Pero eso sí ocurre en el sistema monetario actual. En el sistema de reserva fraccionaria que hoy tenemos, si asumimos un requerimiento de 10%, un depósito inicial de $100, genera un préstamo (output, producto) de $90 que luego regresa al banco, ese nuevo depósito (input, insumo) genera un nuevo préstamo de $81, y el proceso se repite varias veces hasta que el multiplicador se agota.

The international banking community, in the face of the United Nations Environmental Program Finance Initiative (UNEP), recognizes the need for a fundamental change in the banks' approach to the economy. In the context of this way of thinking is the Positive Impact Manifesto, adopted by this organization in May 2016. It states that banks should use their unique position as intermediaries between the real economy and the capital markets and begin to reorient their business models to finance sustainable development, an integral part of which is environmental protection. The aim of this change must be to realize a fully positive impact from its activities, which in turn is defined as "demonstrably leading to a positive impact on the economy, society and the environment, after due consideration and minimization of all negative impacts". The purpose of this study is to analyze some good practices in three countries leading into circular economy orientated policies -China, Brazil and Peru, and based on this analysis, to draw some insights into the future of banking in the transition from linear to circular economy.