This paper argues that the long-standing predominance of a particular approach to science neither makes it uniquely “scientific” nor superior to rival approaches. To do so we examine the dominant scientific explanation of the 17th and early 18th centuries: the mechanical philosophy. Our...

Distributism, a social program most closely associated with Catholic social teaching, calls for widespread and decentralized property ownership. Much in distributist thought, when considered in light of standard price theory, is simply untenable. But there is also much in distributist thought...

The Austrian theory of the business cycle (henceforth ABC) frequently has been a target for critics of Austrian economics. In particular, a number of economists who are generally appreciative of other Austrian themes have singled out ABC as being, in one such critic's words, an “embarrassing...

Prior to the Asian crisis, benign liquidity conditions contributed to credit expansion and overinvestment in the East Asian economies until they were hit by a deep recession (Saxena and Wong 2002). Similarly to the developments in the tiger economies in the nineties, the CEE economies grew...

The paper suggests that during Greenspan’s incumbency the fear of depression caused the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates rapidly when asset price developments suggested a crisis potential. Whereas, when asset markets were growth-supporting, it did not raise interest rates. This...

Prior to the Asian crisis, benign liquidity conditions contributed to credit expansion and overinvestment in the East Asian economies until they were hit by a deep recession (Saxena and Wong 2002). Similarly to the developments in the tiger economies in the nineties, the CEE economies grew...

The business cycles theories of Wicksell (1898), Schumpeter (1912), Mises (1912), Hayek (1929, 1935) and Minsky (1986, 1992) explain business cycles by distorted prices on capital markets, buoyant credit expansion and overinvestment. The exuberance during the boom endogenously causes the...

We show how since the mid 1980s expansionary monetary policies in the large economies and “vagabonding liquidity” have contributed to bubbles in the new and emerging markets. Based on the monetary overinvestment theories of Hayek and Wicksell we describe a wave of bubbles and crises that was...

This paper studies the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the Bundesbank / European Central Bank (ECB) with respect to stock or/and foreign exchange markets from 1979 to 2009. I find that Fed policy changed over time, dependent on the chairman of the Fed. During the Greenspan era...