Volume. 3, No. 2 (Summer 2000) During the late 1840s more than one million Irish died and many more emigrated, with the Irish population not returning to its former level for over a century. Author Cormac Ó Gráda would appear to bewell suited to write about this tragedy. He is professor of economics at the University College in
Volume 3, No. 4 (Winter 2000) The great value of Charles Adam’s book, When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession , is that it shows in careful historical detail that slavery did not cause this great tragedy. In short, the Southern states formed a new republic to avoid paying tariffs that benefited
Volume 4, No. 3 (Fall 2001) This book is a long-awaited project among Austrian economists; some of the central contributions found in the book date back nearly a quarter of a century. The consensus of opinion is that it has been worth the wait and that the book is an important contribution to Austrian economics as well as to the
Volume 5, No. 3 (Fall 2002) I have re-examined Bastiat’s contributions to economic theory and have found the charges against him to be unsubstantiated. In terms of economic theory, Bastiat is widely knowledgeable, keenly discerning, highly competent,and very creative. Furthermore, I have concluded that the central criticisms of his
Volume 6, No. 4 (Winter 2003) It seems odd that economists would find the idea of falling prices to be a bad thing. Likewise, it is peculiar that policymakers would fear deflation and be willing to take drastic measures to insure the so-called “defeat” of deflation. Policymakers and politicians, after all, would supposedly want the general
Volume 6, No. 4 (Winter 2003) In an age when deflation is widely feared and the threat of deflation serves as a justification for radical policy proposals, Bordo and Redish have done a great service in showing that deflation is not harmful to the economy, at least on the gold standard. However, they find an anomaly—a teaser—in Canada
Volume 8, No. 1 (Spring 2005) The skyscraper index, created by economist Andrew Lawrence shows a correlation between the construction of the world’s tallest building and the business cycle. Is this just a coincidence, or perhaps do skyscrapers cause business cycles? A theoretical foundation of “Cantillon effects” for the skyscraper index is
Volume 9, No. 3 (Fall 2006) Richard Cantillon was the first economist to successfully examine the cyclical nature of the capitalist economy. He lived at a time (168?–1734) when the institutions of the modern capitalist economy were first fully and widely established and the first major business cycles occurred. In contrast to the
The most significant recent development in the study of economic history has been the investigation of the profitability of American slavery made famous in Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman’s Time on the Cross . Their book not only rewrote the history of antebellum slavery, it ushered in a completely new methodology of economic history: the
“A return to Austrian School tenets, both in capital theory and in monetary theory, and also in business-cycle theory, is absolutely needed.” The Stock Market, Credit and Capital Formation by Fritz Machlup (1931, 1940): translated from a revised version of the German edition by Vera C. Smith (a pdf file). Read an interview with Machlup in the
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.
