The Austrian And Bloomington Schools Of Political Economy

The volume is a unique attempt to explore the relationship between two of the most interesting contemporary schools of thought evolving at the interface between social science and social philosophy: The Austrian tradition of F A Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and the Bloomington tradition of Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom.

This paper compares and contrasts two schools of political economy: the Austrian School, prominent members of which include Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises; and the Bloomington School, which was founded by Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. It is argued that the two traditions share a good deal in common: both have improved our understanding of the limits of centralised or monocentric approaches to the organisation of society, as well as of the potential of polycentric systems to facilitate the effective use of local knowledge; and both have also engaged in empirical strategies that have privileged being “on the ground” and efforts to understand their subject's point of view. The paper also discusses how in practice relations between the two schools were mediated by the work of two other groups of thinkers: school, namely the Virginia school of political economy -- or public choice theory -- as developed by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock; and the ordo-liberal or Freiburg school of Walter Eucken and Franz Böhm. However, notwithstanding such common ground, it is also argued the facts that the links between the two schools are not as strong as they might be. This essay suggests how those connections might be deepened, in particular by summarising the arguments advanced in the essays contained in the volume to which it serves as the Introduction.

The chapters in this volume explore, engage and expand on the key thinkers and ideas of the Austrian, Virginia, and Bloomington schools of political economy. The book emphasizes the continuing relevance of the contributions of these schools of thought to our understanding of cultural, social, moral and historical processes for interdisciplinary research in the social sciences and humanities. An analysis of human action that deliberate divorces it from cultural, social, moral and historical processes will (at least) limit and (at worst) distort our understanding of human phenomena. The diversity in topics and approaches will make the volume of interest to readers in a variety of fields, including: anthropology, communications, East Asian languages & literature, economics, law, musicology, philosophy, and political science.

Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises, was one of the most original and controversial economists of the 20th century, both as a defender of free-market liberalism and a leading opponent of socialism and the interventionist-welfare state. He was both the grant designer of a political economy of freedom and a trenchant, detailed critic of government regulatory and monetary policies in the first half of the 20th century. This fascinating book explores the cultural currents of anti-Semitism in Austria before and after the First World War that Mises confronted as an Austrian Jew; his analysis of Austria-Hungary’s establishment of a gold standard; Mises’ multi-sided activities in the years after the World War I in stemming a hyperinflation, opposing government fiscal mismanagement, and resisting misguided policies during the Great Depression; and his analysis of how Europe plunged into World War II and the policies to restore freedom and prosperity in the post-war period. It also discusses the confrontation between the Austrian Economists and the Keynesians over the causes and cures for the Great Depression, as well as how Mises’ "Austrian" approach to money and the business cycle contrasted with both the ideas of Joseph A. Schumpeter and the Swedish Economists of the interwar period. This volume breaks new ground in placing Ludwig von Mises’ many original views on political economy, public policy and monetary economics in the historical context of his time, especially during the interwar period when he was a senior economic analyst for the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and after his arrival in America during World War II. The book will therefore be of interest to students and researchers in monetary economics, political economy, expectations theory and the market process, and the history of economic thought.

He shows the continuities between the positive contributions of the classical economists and the Austrian's in contrast to the neoclassical conceptions of man, the market economy and theory-formation for policy applications. Particular emphasis is given to the Austrian view of the human actor as creative innovator and planner who changes his world to improve his circumstances in comparison to the neoclassical idea of man as a passive economizer within given constraints. The Austrian approach is applied to the problems of the regulated economy, socialist central planning, the welfare state, monetary policy, international trade, and the hundred-year conflict between classical liberalism and collectivism.

Features papers presented at the inaugural Wirth Institute Conference on the Austrian School of Economics. This work explores issues in economic policy, applied economics, and pure theory from a variety of perspectives.

This book intends to renovate the view of social sciences in the German-speaking world. It explores the intellectual tension in the social science in Austria and Germany in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. It deals with how the emergence of the new school (Austrian School) changed the focus of social science in the German speaking world, and how it prepared the introduction of an evolutionary perspective in economics, politics, and sociology. Based on (mostly hitherto unknown) primary evidence, this development is lively described in a series of encounters and decisions by each social scientists.

The volume is a unique attempt to explore the relationship between two of the most interesting contemporary schools of thought evolving at the interface between social science and social philosophy: The Austrian tradition of F A Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and the Bloomington tradition of Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom.

This volume demonstrates how the Austrian challenge, and the debates it inspires, can continue to benefit contemporary developments in micro- and macroeconomic theory, and can offer insights into other schools of thought.