Using recent findings from modern empirical disciplines and mainly building on F.A.Hayek’s thoughts, the paper gives a definition of knowledge in accord with the Austrian School’s tradition, and basing on the definition, it sums up three behavior assumptions and a framework on explaining...

The world of economics is a complicated and messy place. Yet modern economic analysis rests on an attempt to represent the world by means of simple mathematical models. To what extent is this possible? How can such a program cope with the fact that economic outcomes are often driven by factors...

Ronald Coase wrote two great theoretical articles that earned him the Nobel Prize: "The Nature of the Firm" in 1937 and "The Problem of Social Cost" in 1960. He also wrote many articles dealing with the methodology of economics, often in the setting of a discussion of a particular economist,...

One of the most controversial parts of F. A. Hayek's work is his theory of cultural evolution. By starting with current discussions on biological and cultural selection theories we bring individual, kin and group selection aspects together and shed some light on Hayek's thoughts on the Theory of...

The greatest empirical research project into the shape of the business cycle which has ever been made, was conducted in America at the "National Bureau of Economic Research" between 1920 and the 1950s under the guidance of Wesley Mitchell and Arthur Burns. Thor Hultgren was one of the members of...

Milton Friedman’s “The Methodology of Positive Economies” is still one of the most widely read pieces on economic methodology. One reason for this might be Friedman’s attractive proposal that economists use theories and hypotheses as pragmatic devices to summarize data and make...

In Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1947) Schumpeter asks "Can capitalism survive?" He answers: "No. I do not think it can." In an essay I wrote in 1981 entitled "Was Schumpeter Right?" I began with the words: "No. I do not think he was." Now, over a decade later, I wish to reconsider the...

In the contemporary scientific and socio-political space the works of K. Marx are in total oblivion. Even more, during the whole 20th century in the Western countries, and lately in the Eastern ones, he is anathematized politically and scientifically as an evil spirit. And still - is the...

This article compares the problems arising in the course of the editing of the Interwar Papers and Correspondence (1919-1939) of Roy Harrod and of the materials relating to the preparation (1934-1937) of Gottfried Haberler's inquiry on Prosperity and Depression led for the League of Nations. In...

José Alonso López is among the most suggestive figures of the first Spanish liberalism. Some of the most outstanding features in his thought are the object of this article: the links between political and economic liberalism; his criticisms to economic abstractions detached from factual...