«(...)Now what is Prof. Boettke going to tell you? I suspect that he is going to say that merely focusing on people’s erroneous beliefs “makes me an Austrian." I call this the “Hayek said the sky is blue" tactic. If you say the sky is blue, that makes you an Austrian because Hayek defended the sky-is-blue thesis back in the 30’s. Hayek talked a bit about mistaken beliefs; therefore anyone who ventures within a thousand intellectual miles of this topic is a “Hayekian.”
This is ridiculous. By this standard not only does Hayek get credit for ideas that he did not anticipate; he gets credit for ideas that preceded his birth! Hayek made some contributions here - though frankly he was very repetitious. But he did little to advance modern rational expectations theorizing, and even less to anticipate its empirical weaknesses.
(...)
Stepping back to my title, why shouldn’t you be an Austrian economist? The fundamental reason is that their main original claims are incorrect. In consequence, even when Austrians hit on a good topic, it is hard for them to follow through because they are struggling NOT to be neoclassical.
Brian Caplan
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Tuesday, September 14, 2004
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Permita-me discordar da sua causa. Tive a felicidade de ter um professor de Cambridge que exalta a escola austríaca. Quer em História do Pensamento Económico, que nas restantes disciplinas do curso de Economia, pude conhecer a Escola Austríaca. Quanto a Hayek, ele é brilhante a desmascarar a economia de planificação central.
" I conclude that while self-labeled Austrian economist have some valid contributions to make to economics, these are simply not distinctive enough to substain a school of thought"
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