The Austrian School of Economics is an intellectual tradition in economics and political economy dating back to Carl Menger in the late-19th century. Menger stressed the subjective nature of value in the individual decision calculus. Individual choices are indeed made on the margin, but the evaluations of rank ordering of ends sought in the act of choice are subjective to individual chooser. For Menger, the economic calculus was about scarce means being deployed to pursue an individual's highest valued ends. The act of choice is guided by subjective assessments of the individual, and is open ended as the individual is constantly discovering what ends to pursue, and learning the most effective way to use the means available to satisfy those ends. This school of economic thinking spread outside of Austria to the rest of Europe and the United States in the early-20th century and continued to develop and gain followers, establishing itself as a major stream of heterodox economics. The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics provides an overview of this school and its theories. The various contributions discussed in this book all reflect a tension between the Austrian School's orthodox argumentative structure (rational choice and invisible hand) and its addressing of a heterodox problem situations (uncertainty, differential knowledge, ceaseless change). The Austrian economists from the founders to today seek to derive the invisible hand theorem from the rational choice postulate via institutional analysis in a persistent and consistent manner. Scholars and students working in the field of History of Economic Thought, those following heterodox approaches, and those both familiar with the Austrian School or looking to learn more will find much to learn in this comprehensive volume.
1. Introduction ; Peter Boettke and Christopher Coyne ; METHODOLOGY ; 2. Austrian Methodology: A Review & Synthesis ; Adam Martin ; MICROECONOMICS ; 3. The Knowledge Problem ; Lynne Kiesling ; 4. Market Theory and the Price System ; Frederic Sautet ; 5. Austrians Versus Market Socialists ; Jesus Huerta de Soto ; 6. Spontaneous Order ; Daniel D'Amico ; MACROECONOMICS AND MONETARY ECONOMICS ; 7. The Capital Using Economy ; Peter Lewin and Howard Baetjer ; 8. Capital-Based Macroeconomics: Austrians, Keynes, and Keynesians ; John P. Cochran ; 9. Austrian Business Cycle Theory: A Modern Appraisal ; Andrew Young ; 10. Free Banking ; Kevin Dowd ; INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS ; 11. Social Economy as an Extension of the Austrian Research Program ; Emily Chamlee-Wright and Virgil Storr ; 12. Organizations and Markets ; Nicolai J. Foss, Peter G. Klein, and Stefan Linder ; 13. The Evolution of Property Rights Systems ; Bruce Benson ; 14. On the Origins of Stock Markets ; Edward Stringham ; PUBLIC POLICY AND INTERVENTIONISM ; 15. The Rule of Experts ; Roger Koppl ; 16. The Problem of Rationality: Austrian Economics between Classical Behaviorism and Behavioral Economics ; Mario Rizzo ; 17. Dynamics of Interventionism ; Sanford Ikeda ; POLITICAL ECONOMY ; 18. Ordoliberalism and the Austrian School ; Stefan Kolev ; 19. The Tax State as Source of Perpetual Crisis ; Richard Wagner ; 20. Constitutional Political Economy and Austrian Economics ; Mark Pennington ; 21. Public Choice and Austrian Economics ; Randall Holcombe ; 22. The Market Process Theory Perspective of Capitalism: Normative Facets and Implications ; Paul Dragos Aligica ; AUSTRIAN CONNECTIONS AND EXTENSIONS ; 23. On the Economy Wide Implications of Kirznerian Alertness ; Maria Minnitti ; 24. Contemporary Austrian Economics and the New Economic Sociology ; Ryan Langrill and Virgil Storr ; 25. The Austrian Theory of Finance: Is It a Unique Contribution to the Field? ; Gregory Dempster ; 26. Austrian Economics and the Evolutionary Paradigm ; Ulrich Witt and Naomi Beck ; 27. Complexity and Austrian Economics ; J. Barkley Rosser ; 28. The Sensory Order, Neuroeconomics and Austrian Economics ; Bill Butos and Thomas McQuade ; DEVELOPMENT, TRANSITION, AND SOCIAL CHANGE ; 29. What Have we Learned from the Collapse of Communism? ; Peter Boettke and Olga Nicoara ; 30. The Political Economy of Foreign Intervention ; Thomas K. Duncan and Christopher Coyne ; 31. From Subsistence to Advanced Material Production: Austrian Development Economics ; G.P. Manish and Benjamin Powell ; 32. On Your Mark, Get Set, Develop! Leadership and Economic Development ; Scott A. Beaulier and Daniel J. Smith ; APPLICATIONS: THE 2007 FINANCIAL CRISIS ; 33. The Financial Crisis in the United States ; Steven Horwitz ; 34. The Financial Crisis in the UK: Uncertainty, Calculation and Error ; Anthony J. Evans
