Austrian Economics Research Conference

The AERC began today and so far, so excellent. My colleague, Jeff Herbener and I got here this afternoon just in time to hear David Rapp, Herbener's co-author, deliver their paper and then hear the Henry Hazlitt Lecture by John Tamny. Tamny is the political economy editor at Forbes and editor of RealClearMarkets.com. His lecture, "Government Barriers to Economic Growth: How Policy Error Gave Us the Great Depression, the Financial Crisis, and the Great Recession," was a tremendous, engaging discussion about how the state hinders economic prosperity with applications from the Great Depression, the financial meltdown, and today.

What Is a Free Market?

That is the question, among others, posed to me by Dan Elmendorf on his radio program A Plain Answer. That program is produced and broadcast on the radio stations in the Redeemer Broadcasting network. In the interview I do discuss the economics and morality of the free market, identify the institutions necessary to support such a market, and the consequences when governments interview via a host of measures. My goal was to introduce listeners with perhaps no formal training in economics to sound analysis. You can see if I succeeded by clicking here.

Engelhardt on Monetary Independence

This year's Austrian Student Scholars Conference got off to a vigorous start with Lucas Engelhardt's delivery of the Hans Sennholz memorial lecture. Engelhardt drew upon the work of Sennholz himself to make the case for an entire free market in money and banking. He explained what he sees as the problems of our current monetary regime as well as the limitations of various monetary rules that have been proposed by economists such as Milton Friedman, John Taylor, and Scott Sumner.

He then made the case for the benefits and viability of a completely free market for money and banking in which anyone could attempt to produce and circulate money. He explained how such a system could work like the market for any other economic good. He then outlined a few steps that would take us in that direction, such as abolishing legal tender laws, taking government monetary titles off of metallic currency, and allow for freedom in the banking industry. All in all, it was a tremendous beginning to what promises to be an outstanding conference.

Part way through Engelhardt's lecture, it occurred to me that this years ASSC features three generations of Austrian economists. Tonight's Sennholz Lecture was given by a former student of mine. Tomorrow's Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture will be delivered by a professor I had in graduate school, Mark Thornton. What a blessing to see how economic truth has been communicated from one generation to the next.

Austrian Student Scholars Conference 2015

Tomorrow begins this years Austian Student Scholars Conference. We will hear twenty-two papers presented by students from the United States as well as abroad. We will also hear keynote lectures by Dr. Lucas Engelhardt and Dr. Mark Thornton. Admission to all lectures and paper presentations are free and open to the public.  Below is a schedule of events:

Friday, February 20, 2015

5:00-5:30 Registration. HAL Atrium.

5:30-6:30 Dinner. SU Great Room.

7:00-8:00 Hans Sennholz Memorial Lecture. Sticht Lecture Hall.

“A Case for Monetary Independence"                          Dr. Lucas Engelhardt

                                                                                    Assistant Professor of Economics

                                                                                    Kent State University, Stark

Saturday, February 21, 2015

8:30-9:00 Coffee and Pastries. HAL Atrium.

9:00-10:30 Sessions

     ▪ Legislating Morality. Chairman: Jeff Herbener. HAL 114.

            • “Sex and the Law: An Economic Analysis of Prostitution Legalization and Sex

                Trafficking,” Jon Nelson (Grove City College)

            • “Prohibition,” Brian O’Riordan (Grove City College)

            • “What Has Government Done to Marriage,” Ryan Brown (Grove City College)

            • “A Private, Non-Profit Solution to Foster Care and Adoption: An Analysis of

                Privatizing the Foster Care System in the United States,”

                Claire Vetter (Grove City College)

10:45-12:15 Sessions

▪ Liberal Social Order. Chairman: Jeff Herbener. HAL 114.

            • “Cognitive Dissonance, Envy, and the Psychological Roots of Anti-Liberalism,”

                Zack Yost (Mercyhurst University)

            • “The New Paternalism: A Libertarian Treatment, But not a Cure,”

                Kyle Kreider (Grove City College)

            • “No Tragedy of the Common Law: Polycentric Private Legal Systems and

                Bloomington Institutional Analysis,” Chesterton Cobb (Grove City College)

▪ Foundational Issues in Economics. Chairman: Shawn Ritenour. HAL 116.

   • “Can Economics Give Us Knowledge: The Claims of Economics in Light of

                Modern Epistemological Theory,” Jake Tinkham (Grove City College)

            • “Some Methodological Flaws in Mainstream Economic Theories,”

                Xiaolin Zhang (University of Lethbridge, Canada) 

            • “Science, Probability, and a Theory of Foresight,”

                Davis Bourne (Millsaps College)

            • “Toward a Subjective Theory of Risk,” 

                Daniel Sanchez-Piñol Yulee (King Juan Carlos University, Spain)

12:30-1:30 Lunch. SU Great Room.

2:00-3:30 Sessions

▪ Problems in Macroeconomics. Chairman: Jeff Herbener. HAL 114.

• “Reconsidering the Long-Run Tradeoff Between Inflation and Unemployment,”

              Karl-Friedrich Israel (University of Angers, France)

• “Japan’s Long, Lost Decades: A Historical Assessment of Japan’s Unecessary

              Economic Slump,” Eric Peterman (Grove City College)

• “Capital Mobility and Comparative Advantage,”

             William Casey (Grove City College)

▪ Policy, Ancient and Modern. Chairman: Shawn Ritenour. HAL 116.

            • “Lex Sempronia Agraria: The Land Reform of Tiberius Gracchus,”

                Justin Klazinga (Grove City College)

• “The Impossibility of Urban Central Planning,”

              Franco Martin Lopez (Universidad Abierta Interamericana, Argentina)

• “An Austrian View on the Economics of Healthcare,”

              George Lominadze (Ilia State University, Georgia)

3:45-5:15 Sessions

▪ Great Debates in Economics. Chairman: Jeff Herbener. HAL 114.

            • “Marginalized Schools at War: A Clash of Distributism and Austrian

                Economic Theory from the Early 19^th Century to the Present,”

                Scott Alford (Grove City College)

• “Integrated Value Theory and the False Dichotomy of the Intrinsic and

              Subjective Theories of Value,” Thomas Cottone (Florida Atlantic University)

            • “An Austrian Critique of William Redmond’s Three Modes of Competition

                in the Marketplace,” Jared Billings (Grove City College)

▪ Money and Banking. Chairman: Shawn Ritenour. HAL 116.

            • “The Backing of the Currency and Economic Stability,”

                Zack Morrow (Wofford College)

• “Detangling the Fractional Reserve Debate,” Dorian Rahamin (Vienna, Va.)

• “The Euro, Pros and Cons,” Evan Burns (Grove City College)

5:30-6:30 Dinner. SU Great Room.

6:45-7:00 Awarding of the Richard E. Fox Prizes for Best Papers. Sticht Lecture Hall.

7:00-8:00 Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture. Sticht Lecture Hall.

“What a Real Free Market in Drugs Looks Like”                           Dr. Mark Thornton

Reality Trumps Federal Reserve Rhetoric

An excerpt from my chapter, "The Fed: Reality Trumps Rhetoric" appears today as a daily article at Mises.org. I was honored to be asked to contribute the chapter to a new book, The Fed at One Hundred that provides a critical assessment of our nation's central money making machine. Edited by David Howden and Joseph T. Salerno, the book is an excellent work providing a scholarly evaluation of the Federal Reserve. In my chapter I explore main themes in the rhetoric used by Fed officials, drawing upon speeches from Federal Reserve Chairmen and official Fed publications since its inception. I then hold this rhetoric up to the light of the monetary and economic history of the United States and show that despite claims to be the savior of the global economy,

The history of the Fed has been one of monetary inflation, higher overall prices, diminished purchasing power, economic depressions, and lost decades. In 1913 the state sowed the inflationist wind and for a hundred years we have been reaping the economic whirlwind.

Salerno on Rothbard's THE MYSTERY OF BANKING

Here is Joseph Salerno's nice introduction of Murray Rothbard's The Mystery of Banking.



I concur that The Mystery of Banking is an excellent introduction to monetary theory, how fractional reserve banking affects the quantity of money and its purchasing power, and the monetary history of the United States. In fact, if you come to Grove City College to study economics, you will use it as the main text in our Money and Banking course.

Ritenour on Holcombe's ADVANCED INTRODUCTION TO AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS

My review of Randall Holcombe's new Advanced Introduction to Austrian Economics has just been published by Libertarian Papers. Holcombe's concise work makes for an excellent way to introduce any friends (or enemies for that matter) who are schooled in the neoclassical economic framework to the more rich, realistic, and therefore relevant economic analysis in the Austrian tradition.