Janek Wasserman (University of Alabama) – Austrian Economics: echt wienerisch or made in the USA?

11:00 a.m., OeNB-Geldzentrum, Garnisongasse 15, 1090 Vienna

This lecture examines the transition of the “Vienna School” from its pluralist origins in Austria to its "revival" in the United States. The paper chronicles how selective appropriation of Austrian ideas – primarily from Ludwig Mises and Friedrich Hayek – by free-market American activists produced a fundamentally different Austrian Economics, one which is defined by its politics as much as its economics. This paper maintains that by restoring more Austrian economists to our discussions of the school, a richer patrimony appears. It will therefore investigate the ideas of Oskar Morgenstern, Gottfried Haberler, Fritz Machlup, and others alongside those of Hayek and Mises. It also explores the dense network of affiliations around the Austrians – universities, institutes, and organizations – that made the Austrians such an intellectual force in the mid-twentieth century. The Austrian Economics that emerges from this revised picture is one that has enduring relevance not only for the economics profession, but also for our understanding of the Austrian and American past and the "neoliberal" present.