Search results for ""author roger koppl""

Some would argue that the financial crash revealed failings in the discipline of economics as well as in the financial system. The main post-war approaches to economics, based on neo-classical and new- Keynesian principles and modelling, failed to anticipate the crash or the depth of the slump that followed. In this monograph, Roger Koppl, drawing on ideas from the Austrian school and the work that has been done on policy uncertainty argues that the missing ingredient in many economic theories is a proper theory of "confidence". The author is not only able to make sense of Keynes' "animal spirits", but also demonstrates how "Big Players" - often, though not always, government agencies - can undermine confidence, reduce long-term investment, increase speculation and reduce economic growth over a long period of time. From crisis to confidence not only describes the process through which the economy must go through before a full recovery after the financial crash, it also describes the journey that must be travelled by the discipline of economics. As economics students and other commentators question post-war macro-economics, Roger Koppl provides some of the answers needed to understand the long slump after the financial crash. A theory of confidence is needed in any economic framework that is to explain one of the most important periods in modern economic history.

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The Austrian tradition in economic thought had a profound influence on the development of post-war economics including neoclassical orthodoxy, game theory, public choice, behavioral economics, experimental economics and complexity economics. Much of what was once unique to the Austrian school has become part of the cognitive DNA of work-a-day economists. Because these Austrian roots have gone largely unrecognized, economists often wonder quite sincerely what the fuss is about when it comes to the Austrian school. In this sense, the Austrian school has been a victim of its own success. The papers in this volume reveal that the riches of the Austrian school have not been exhausted and further inquiry in the Austrian tradition will continue to yield much that is new and valuable. The volume publishes a carefully selected subset of papers presented at the inaugural Wirth Institute Conference on the Austrian School of Economics. The contributors are Lawrence H White; Hansjorg Klausinger; Martin Gregor; Peter Boettke, Christopher Coyne, & Peter Leeson; Roger Koppl, Torsten Niechoj, Steven Horwitz; and, Peter Lewin. These scholars explore issues in economic policy, applied economics, and pure theory from a variety of perspectives. Their explorations of the frontiers of Austrian economics reveal a rich tradition of scholarship with continuing relevance to social thought is all its dimensions.

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The contributors to this volume seriously engage issues in the crossroads where biology, psychology, and economics meet. The volume makes several important contributions to the area and provides an overview of the current state of knowledge. Biologist David Sloan Wilson, psychologists Robert Kurzban and C.A. Aktipis, economists Geoffrey Hodgson, Paul Rubin and Evelyn Gick, and jurist David Friedman consider altruism, selfishness, group selection, methodological individualism, dominance hierarchies, and other issues relating evolutionary psychology to economics. Several contributors, such as Viktor Vanberg and Brian Loasby, pay special attention to the role of F. A. Hayek and other "Austrian" thinkers in shaping evolutionary approaches to economic theory. Theoretical biologist Deby Cassill relates her revolutionary theory of "skew selection" in biology to perennial issues in political economy. The volume includes a symposium on group selection and methodological individualism. In an important paper, D. G. Whitman argues that group selection and methodological individualism are "compatible and complementary. Comments from Elliot Sober & David Sloan Wilson, Richard Langlois, Todd Zywicki, and Adam Gifford offer a heterogeneous set of responses to Whitman's argument. Roger Koppl's introduction constitutes a review essay and includes an argument that "Austrian" economists have a comparative advantage in bringing the Verstehen tradition of social thought into contact with recent work in biology and evolutionary psychology.

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The term the 'Entangled political economy' was first coined by Economist Richard E. Wagner of George Mason University who challenged the "additive" political economy paradigm with his "entangled political economy," which sees public and private entities as equal and entwined players in exchange relations. This volume examines entangled political economy from several distinct but complementary points of view. The history of entangled political economy is traced to Adam Smith and Carl Menger and its implications are worked out for both theoretical and applied economics. New directions in economic modeling are struck. Finally, entanglement is found to imply complexity, which leads not only to somewhat non-standard mathematical methods in economics, but also principled limits to the explanatory and predictive power of mathematical models in political economy. The volume demonstrates that Wagner's notion of entanglement opens new vistas for political economy in all its dimensions.

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Hayek's philosophical psychology as set out in his The Sensory Order (1952) has, for the most part, been neglected. Despite being lauded by computer scientist grandee Frank Rosenblatt and by Nobel prize-winning biologist Gerald Edelman, cognitive scientists -- with a few exceptions -- have yet to discover Hayek's philosophical psychology. On the other hand, social theorists, Hayek's traditional disciplinary constituency, have only recently begun to take note and examine the importance of psychology in the complete Hayek corpus. This volume brings together for the first time state-of-the-art contributions from neuroscientists and philosophers of mind as well as economists and social theorists, all critically engaging in many aspects of Hayek's philosophical psychology.

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The theme of this volume is 'New Thinking in Austrian Political Economy'. It includes original research by scholars working within Austrian political economy. The contributors draw on insights from Austrian economics that shed new light on a range of relevant topics including: the role of culture in economic action, the political economy of post-disaster recovery, class structure, decentralized political orders, drones, institutional change, macroeconomics, and superstition and norms. Each chapter discusses the relevance of Austrian political economy for understanding the topic under analysis and discusses areas for future exploration and research. The volume captures the relevance of Austrian political economy for scholarship on a wide array of topics and its potential as an active and open-ended research program. Scholars working in the areas of Austrian economics, heterodox economics, constitutional political economy, cultural studies, political science, public choice, sociology, and public policy will find the volume of interest.

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In almost every corner of our private and public lives we rely on experts to advise us. This important species of labor is getting increasing attention from economists, who are beginning to learn how to apply their tools and assumptions to the problem of expertise. Under what conditions of supply and demand are experts likely to give us good advice? When is expert failure more likely? Do entrepreneurs challenge existing expertise? Are they experts themselves? And if economists are themselves experts, what happens when we turn the skeptical gaze of economic theory on the economist themselves? This volume publishes papers given at the third biennial Wirth Institute Conference on Austrian Economics. It brings together a heterogeneous collection of thinkers, some "Austrian" and others not, to critically engage the problem of experts. While mostly agreeing that there is a problem of experts, the papers collected here approach the issue from a variety of often-complementary perspectives.

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Leading scholars consider Austrian economics from several perspectives such as characteristic themes of entrepreneurship and uncertainty, scientific methods such as mathematical complexity theory and experimental economics, and historical contexts such as pre-war Vienna and post-war France. Placing "Austrian economics" in these multiple contexts helps to reveal the rich texture of the Austrian tradition in social thought and its multiple connections to current research in diverse fields. Applications to the theory of the trade cycle and to foreign intervention suggest that the Austrian tradition contains possibilities not yet full explored and exploited. The volume gathers together papers presented at the second biennial Wirth conference on Austrian economics, held in October 2008 when the crisis of Fall 2008 was still new and shocking. This coincidence of timing makes policy issues and crisis management a kind of leitmotif of the volume. If, as keynote speaker David Colander argues, Austrians have a comparative advantage in political economy, then its stock should rise in times of crisis and political uncertainty. The volume provides evidence in favor of this view. Contributors include David Colander, Richard Wagner, Jeffery McMullen, J. Barkley Rosser, Jr., Steve Horwitz, Richard Ebeling, Chris Coyne, and Peter Boettke.

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