Buchanan and the Austrians: A tale of two bridges

This article explores certain aspects of James Buchanan’s struggles, over a period of years, to come to grips with Austrian subjectivism in economic theory.     

Coordination as a Criterion for Economic “Goodness”

Welfare economics requires a criterion for economic goodness in regard to a society. Unlike conventional criteria, coordination (among independent decisionmakers) does not violate methodological individualism. The coordination criterion can be objectively deployed to judge events or policies, referring only to the given preference rankings of relevant individuals, given their initial positions. An important variant refers not to the attained (or unattained) state of achieved coordination, but to the ability of events or policies to affect the process through which a better-coordinated state may be approached. Several implications of the coordination criterion are explored.     

Creativity and/or Alertness: A Reconsideration of the Schumpeterian Entrepreneur

The Review of Austrian Economics -     

Priority patterns of acquisition of financial assets

Identification of the order in which households acquire financial assets has important market segmentation and sales forecasting strategy implications. Utilizing Guttman scalogram analysis, this study finds that for ten financial assets a systematic priority pattern is operative for a large sample of Canadian households. Results are compared with those of a similar study carried out in the United States.     

The alert and creative entrepreneur: a clarification

Israel M. Kirzner is the 2006 winner of The International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research (the FSF-Nutek Award). In this Prize Lecture he argues that a number of those who have commented on his work have misunderstood certain aspects of his theoretical system, and as a result the common distinction in the literature between “Schumpeterian” and “Kirznerian” entrepreneurs is flawed. He also argues that his understanding of the market process (set in motion by entrepreneurial decisions) provides a theoretical underpinning for public policy vis-à-vis entrepreneurship. Professor Kirzner’s main contributions to the economics of entrepreneurship were also presented and evaluated by Douhan et al. [Small Business Economics 29(1–2):213–223, 2007].