Investigations of national competitiveness aim to trace the causal mechanisms behind patterns in wealth and poverty across societies. This paper argues that to be productive such investigations must be comparative, historical and political economic in nature. Comparative historical political...

This paper explores the political economy of F.A. Hayek with emphasis on the continued relevance of his work for contemporary scholars. We focus on the theme of coordination throughout Hayek's research program. This general theme can be traced from Hayek's technical economics up through his...

Both Hayek and Arrow provide arguments about the inability of the vote process to yield a coherent social choice. Hayek demonstrated that planning is incompatible with democracy; its coherence requires dictatorship. Arrow demonstrated that voting fails to produce rational social choices; social...

Official economic statistics reveal that Russia's economic system has continually contracted since 1989. Indeed, by the end of 1996 the Russian economy was basically half the size that it was in 1989 - a steeper fall than what the US experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The...

Robust political economy requires that both the assumptions of agent benevolence and omniscience be relaxed so that both incentive issues and knowledge problems can be adequately addressed. In this article we seek to (1) develop an understanding of the application of robustness in areas outside...

In his recent article, quot;Is Socialism Really 'Impossible'?,quot; Bryan Caplan questions the long-standing Austrian claim that socialism is impossible. Although Caplan is to be commended for engaging the arguments of Austrians such as Mises and Boettke, we contend that his arguments miss the...

This research review covers the main theories and justifications for and against state intervention as they have developed over two centuries. It also incorporates an institutional approach to the role of the state in enforcing "the rules of the game" of the economy as well as examining specific...

This pathbreaking book seeks to be the definitive collection documenting the intellectual legacy of Ludwig von Mises in modern political economy. Its intended readership is scholars in the history of political economy and in particular those interested in the Austrian school of economics.

Most models of Central and Eastern European transition fail to appreciate the "de facto" organising principles that governed life in the Soviet--type system. Concentration has instead been focused on the "de jure" pronouncements of what constituted these systems. It is this misidentification, we...

Research examining the importance of path dependence and culture for institutions and development tells us that "history matters," but not "how" history matters. To provide this missing "how," we provide a framework for understanding institutional "stickiness" based on the regression theorem....