Peter Klein's PhD Course in Austrian Economics

|Peter Boettke|

Peter Klein is offering a PhD course in Austrian economics at University of Missouri.  Peter is an outstanding lecturer (he has won teaching awards across university settings) and his work in the economics of organization has earned him an international reputation as a top scholar far beyond the Austrian circle. This is a great opportunity to study in-depth with a great representative of the modern Austrian school.  

I hope this starts a trend and that Peter will not only offer this course every year, but that he will be joined soon by colleague that share his vision in economics, organizational theory, and political economy.  The more places that interested students can pursue these ideas the better.

There was a time not long ago when Austrian economics was only taught formally at Grove City College by Hans Sennholz.  And there was a time also not long ago when the only place one could formally study Austrian economics at the graduate level was at NYU with Israel Kirzner.  The formal educational shift to wide-spread teaching of Austrian economics at both the undergraduate and graduate level has not been as fast as I would have liked to have seen, but it has grown in a non-trivial manner.  Greater teachers like Richard Ebeling, Walter Block, Steve Horwitz, Dave Prychitko, Tony Carilli, and Emily Chamlee-Wright have replaced the Sennholz's in the world as the master teachers of Austrian economics.  And there are scores of other great teachers of Austrian economics that are populating university and colleges from San Jose State to Hillsdale College to Loyola (New Orleans) to Rhoades College to Troy State.  These amazing young professors who have joined the ranks of college professors (even after Tony and Emily -- can you believe guys you are no longer the young upstarts, but now old and established?!) are establishing new student programs, sending students to summer workshops, and steering their best and brightest to pursue advanced study in economics from an Austrian perspective.  It is a very exciting time.  

And Austrian economics is being taught in a variety of places one might not have expected just a decade ago -- e.g., Bruce Caldwell taught a honors seminar at Duke on Hayek and the Austrian School, and Austrian economics was part of the curriculum in UVA''s philosophy, law and politics program.  Students wanting to earn a PhD can now concentrate their studies in Austrian economics at NYU, GMU, Suffolk, University of Missouri, and overseas in London with Paul Lewis (King's) or Mark Pennington (Queen Mary), or in Spain with Jesus Huerta de Soto, or in France with Pascal Salin, Pierre Garrouste, or Pierre Garello, or Guido Huelsmann.  And of course, you can earn a PhD concentrating in Austrian economics at the UFM in Guatemala.

I am sure I have failed to mention some great undergraduate programs as well as PhD programs for students interested in pursuing these ideas in-depth.  Walter Block has perhaps the most comprehensive list of graduate programs for students to consider, so students should consult that, and professors who are starting a program should contact Walter to either provide him with the relevant information or update the relevant information.

We who are in the field need to keep working hard, and help train and place an Austrian economist teaching in every department of economics in every university and college in the US (and hopefully the world), to build clusters (3 or more such like-minded scholar/teachers) in scores of universities and colleges, and for some of those clusters to be located in PhD programs, and a subset of those even being located in top 10 programs.  We have a way to go to fulfill that vision, but we will not be able to achieve this unless our first priority is the advancement of the research and clarity of communication of that research to our peers in the scientific community of economists so that Austrian ideas increasingly gain scientific respect and traction, and then we need to cultivate great teachers (in the broadest sense of the term) among our graduate students and junior colleagues, and then we need to seek out enthusiastic and talented students.  We are indeed a long way from replicating the Keynesian avalanche that swept US (and world-wide) economic education in the 1940s-1960s, and perhaps that sort of sweeping shift in research and educational purpose is not possible today as it was then.  But a radical shift is required I would argue.

Comments

[fundamentalist]

The University of Oklahoma now offers a class in Austrian econ. From the catalogue:

G5363 Market Process Economics (Slashlisted with 4363). Prerequisite: graduate standing. Examines the "Austrian" economics market process theories based on the work of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Topics include disequilibrium view of markets, the nature of economic knowledge, the role of entrepreneurship, and the critique of central planning. No student may earn credit for both 4363 and 5363. (Irreg.)

[Peter Boettke]

Yes, fundamentalist, but Dan Sutter who taught that course left Oklahoma a few years ago. Has the course been taught since then?

[Peter G. Klein]

Thanks, Pete, for the shout-out!

I would also suggest that we explore better ways to collaborate across institutions, taking advantage of information technology to leverage our scarce human capital more effectively.

[Troy Camplin]

And across disciplines. I was introduced to economics in my undergraduate Intro. to Philosophy class by Ronald Nash, and I was introduced to Austrian economics in my graduate level Game Theory and the Humanities class by Frederick Turner. My own publications have been involved in the intersections between economics and the humanities -- particularly with spontaneous order theory.

[Othyem]

Professor Klein,

Is there any hope of expanding this to, say, UMKC?

[Peter G. Klein]

Othyem, students from UMKC are welcome to drive over once a week! Probably some kind of transfer credit could be arranged too. (Same goes for anyone within driving distance of Columbia, MO.)

[Jerry O'Driscoll]

Great news. Best of luck to Peter Klein.

[fundamentalist]

Peter, I'm trying to find out. It's not in this Fall's schedule. But OU has two professors related to GMU: Robin Grier (Ph.D., George Mason University, 1995), Professor, Fields: Economic Development, Growth, Latin American Development and her husband Kevin Grier (Ph.D., Washington University, 1984), Professor, Fields: Economic Growth, Development, Political Economy. Kevin was an assistant, then associate professor of economics at George Mason University from 1985 - 1993.

[Rafe Champion]

What about the on-line road? Of course it could be in modules, not just a single course.

[Peter Boettke]

Fundamentalist,

I know the Grier's very well. Kevin is technically the best teacher I ever had in economics -- I had him for econometrics, and he made difficult material to a student completely uninterested in the subject, learnable. He also was a strict disciplinarian in that class despite only being a few years our senior at the time. He is a very engaging mind. You should check out his blog -- Kids Prefer Cheese, it is witty and often filled with brilliant insight.

Robin is a very skilled empirical political economist who has worked on deep questions related to economic growth ad development and the cultural determinants of these.

I doubt either of them would be teaching the market process course. I do believe that was Dan Sutter's course. Dan is also an extremely talented economist (a GMU PhD just a few years after me) and he is now teaching in Texas. It would be very rewarding for anyone on this blog to read Dan's work. Last year he did a fantastic paper for Mercatus on insurance, but he has several really good papers that a search of his website will reveal.

I don't know if Dan is teaching a market process course in his new school, I hope he is.

[Troy Camplin]

I know Dan through FSSO. Good guy. He asks interesting and important questions in his papers.

[Roger Clites]

I stumbled on to Austrian Economics at the Foundation for Economic Education in 1982 after arguing with Keynsian-type textbooks from which I had taught for more than 25 yewars. Both FEE and the Mises Institute in Auburn AL are great places for short exposures to Austrian Econoics and places to meet leading figures in that field.

Roger Clites

[Brian B]

I woulod add that Florida State and Clemson both have friendly programs as well, at least the last time I checked and in the overseas department there are some good things going on in some of the Chilean Universities (Catolica and Desarollo, both in Santiago are friendly as well, Desarollo has some GMU Ph.D.s on faculty, one a local and one an US ex-pat).