I am a huge fan of Cato-Unbound.org. Here you find good insightful and intellectual debates amount classical liberal, libertarian and conservative scholars on a number of topics. The quality of the pieces on Cato Unbound is always very high. That is also the case for the latest “debate”. As always there is a “Lead Essay” and a number of “Response Essays”. This time the topic is “Theory and Practice in the Austrian School”.
The lead essay is written by Steve Hortwiz and the response essays are by George Selgin and Bryan Caplan.
Fundamentally Steve’s claim is that Austrian method – praxeology – is not as strict anti-empirical as it is often said to be. In his essay “The Empirics of Austrian Economics” Steve makes an heroic attempt to argue that there is no real conflict between praxeology and empirical studies. Everybody who know me would know that I have greatest respect for Steve and I think he is a very open-minded Austrian. However, sometimes Steve’s attempt to defend Austrian economics goes too far. Fundamentally Steve is making up a version of Austrian economics, which never really existed – or rather the Austrian economics that Steve describes is not really Austrian economics, but rather it is how Steve would like to think Austrian economics should be. And I certainly admit I that I prefer Hortwizian economics to Misesian-Rothbardian economics and Steve certainly knows (much!) better than me what “Austrian economics” really is. However, his essay did not convince me that Austrians are as methodologically open-minded as he claims. Neither has he convinced Bryan Caplan and George Selgin.
Both Bryan and George are well-known friendly critics of Austrian Economics. My own feelings about Austrian economics are similar to those of Bryan and George. To me the world of economics would be very empty without Austrian economics. The contributions to economics by Mises, Hayek and Kirzner etc. can certainly not be overestimated. But I also share the view of particular Bryan who rightly notes that it is too bad that Austrians tend to marginalize themselves and the contributions of Austrian economics by their eagerness to not speak in language of mainstream economics. It is hard not from time to time to feel that Austrian economics is a cult. That is sad because it means that far to many economics students around the world are never introduced to Austrian economics (if you are one of them get a copy of Human Action and start reading NOW!).
Furthermore, I share George’s view that empirical research can be useful in understanding what is important and what is not important. Empirical research is also useful in figuring out the magnitude of a certain economic problem. We can deduct from praxeology that an increase in minimum wages will increase unemployment, but praxeology is not telling us anything about how large that the increase in unemployment will be if minimum wages are increased by X dollars. Both Mises and Rothbard were negative about this kind of empirical analysis – Steve tries to argue that that is not the case, but George shows that his arguments for this is rather weak.
Anyway, the three gentlemen have much better arguments than I have on these issues so read their pieces yourself:
Steve Horwitz: “The Empirics of Austrian Economics”
Bryan Caplan: “Horwitz, Economy and Empirics”
George Selgin: “How Austrian Is It?”
Update – follow-ups:
Thomas Christensen
/ September 12, 2012To put it mildly I’m a lay person when it comes to economics, but the two responses – as well as Caplans earlier piece on why he is not an Austrian seems somewhat unconvincing. The arguments seem petty and not fundamental.
I see economics as a science in the same realm as history, sociology etc. I read an undertone in the critiques of the Austrian school of wanting to be *real* scientists, with numbers and equations and laws and what not. And Mises – to my understanding – clearly states that economics is not and cannot be a hard science. Is this the true basis for the animosity?
I accept that the Austrian school has many flaws, but I’ve yet to find a convincing and fundamental critique from so called main stream economists about the basic insights of Mises et.al.
And thank you for writing this blog. When I understand the posts I’m sometimes enlightened.
Brano
/ September 13, 2012How about all those situations when result is theoretically ambigous? Standard example with compulsory seatbelts and casualties: the effect of feeling safer and driving faster vs. the effect of an increased protection. We do not know which effect will prevail without measurement.