Advances in Austrian Economics, Vol 14 is Now Available

Steven Horwitz

Series editor Roger Koppl and I are happy to announce the publication of volume 14 in the Advances in Austrian Economics series.  This volume, edited by Roger, Pierre Desrochers and me, is What is so Austrian about Austrian Economics? and contains papers from the second biennial Wirth Workshop on Austrian Economics, held in October of 2008 in Mississauga, Ontario.  Contributing authors include Pete Boettke, Chris Coyne, Dick Wagner, Gene Callahan and me, and David Colander's keynote address.  A full flyer with table of contents can be found here. 

The third annual Wirth Workshop is coming up in just over two weeks in Vancouver, BC and is themed around "Austrian Views on Experts and Epistemic Monopolies."  Our keynote speaker will be Sandra Peart and it will include papers by Roger, me, Emily Skarbek, Rob Garnett, Leslie Marsh, and Diana Thomas among others.  Advances will eventually publish that volume as well.

If you have an idea for an edited collection on a topic under the broadest conception of Austrian economics, please contact either me or Roger as we're always interested in new volumes for the series.

Comments

[Dave Prychitko]

Here's a suggestion:

"Empirical Examinations of Business Cycles"

[Pietro M.]

"The Hayekian and Stiglitzian views on information and knowledge".

(I'm reading Thomsen now)

"From market process theory to monetary and business cycle theories"

(aka "everything")

"Capital theory and production functions"

(I've been asked to specify an "Austrian production function" recently, it wasn't that bad at the end)

[Steve Horwitz]

If either of you two wish to edit any of those volumes, just let us know.

Otherwise, tossing out titles is sort of like Wagner's "thinking without writing is just daydreaming". ;)

[Dave Prychitko]

Steve, I had in mind Mario's call for more empirical work. Anyway, you asked.

[Pietro M.]

I can edit a special volume of Advances in Austrian Economics on Low-Voltage Low-Power Analog and Mixed Signal Integrated Circuits. That's something I can write quite left-handedly, although I don't envy the one who will have to decipher my writings.

I can also add a fourth daydreaming:

"The 2007-??? recession"

[Per Bylund]

Isn't the obvious topic for a great Advances volume to cover the legacies and contributions by Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. von Hayek--stressing both the similarities and differences. Such a scholarly work would kill a number of birds with one beautiful stone. Specifically, it would be the one source for all the arguments and views, and it may put an end to the ridiculous trench wars within Austrian econ through providing both (or however many there are) "sides" with the "other" side's arguments.

[Roger Koppl]

The editorial policy of Advances in Austrian Economics is to connect the Austrian tradition of economics with other research traditions in economics and related areas. We seek Austrian and non-Austrian contributions that establish fruitful links between the Austrian tradition and other research traditions.

[Troy Camplin]

Some suggestions:

Spontaneous Orders -- articles on the scientific order, the artistic orders, the religious order, the moral order, the legal order, etc.

Austrian Economics and Far-From-Equilibrum Dynamics

Austrian Economics and Network Theory

Art, Literature, and Austrian Economics

[liberty]

I may be too late on this thread, but...

Some suggestions (any of which I would happily edit!)

1. "Lessons from history and Austrian interpretations" e.g. : Great Depression, Soviet Union or East/West Germany, North/South Korea etc, Japan, etc, but also any lesson from anywhere - political or economic, causes & failures

2. "Austrian economics and market socialism" - what have each learned from the other? Where is the boundary between libertarian market socialism that has learned from the problems of central planning, and Austrian economics that is open to some role for the state at least in some income redistribution? Is the disagreement methodological or only policy prescription? Could an Austrian market socialism offer better policy prescriptions? Papers could look at welfare theory, Austrian analysis of market socialist proposals, new directions to bridge the schools, etc.

3. "The socialist calculation debate in practice" - this would be a series of historical analyses that can be explained by particular points made in the soc. calc debate - this would differ from #1 in that a particular point made in the soc. calc. would be tied in each article to a well researched particular policy and explored in depth. While in #1 contributions could include broad empirical data on a variety of topics and various Austrian theories (e.g., ABCT), in this volume papers would likely focus on descriptive analysis of policy (using numbers only in an illustrative manner) that reveals the soc. calc. insights in practice. (The policies can be anywhere/anytime not just in socialist countries).

[Rafe Champion]

Two suggestions, but one you don’t want to know about so this is the other one, prompted by Terence Kealey’s book on the way laisez faire promotes fundamental research and technological developments that advances human welfare.

http://www.criticalrationalism.net/2010/10/02/summary-of-kealey-on-the-economic-laws-of-scientific-research/

The take-home message is that governments should pull back from their dominant role in education (of all kinds) and from trying to direct research and development. The historical record indicates that wealth-generating technology is mainly developed on site, not in academic research laboratories and private enterprise can supply most if not all of the funds required for both pure and applied research.

That is based on an institutional analysis of learning and innovation from the year dot to 1996.

The twin themes of the collection would be innovation and historical/institutional analysis.

Throw in a third: how much high powered maths is required for good work in this field? [Foonote: What about a two-strand economics degree where one stand does all the math and the other just does the kind of statistics that all life sciences undergrads are supposed to learn, like Roger used in his Big Player research.]

Possible topics:

The provision of primary school education by the “penny” schools in Britain and the US before they were wiped out by “free” public education.

Contemporary educational entrepreneurs in the Third World – see the Ed West people, Mercatus projects, William Easterly.

Review of experience with different strategies to provide choice in school education – vouchers, etc.

Role of Big Players in private funding; Joseph Banks, Count Rumford etc. and the contribution of the researchers who they funded – Darwin, Faraday etc.

More work on Kealey’s three laws of research funding.
First Law. The % of national GDP spent increases with national DGP per capita.
Second Law. Public and private funding displace each other (compete). So public funds tend to displace private funds.
Third Law. The public/private displacement is not equal. Public funds displace a larger volume of private funds than the public input. (net loss)

Kealey’s book is full of research topics. Make him edit the collection.