Big Players and the Economic Theory of Expectations

Big Players and the Economic Theory of Expectations
Author: R. Koppl
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2002-06-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0230629245

Investment and all other economic actions depend on 'subjective' expectations. The problem is how to construct a theory of expectations that assumes people interpret their situations in unpredictable ways. Building on the evolutionary economics of F.A.Hayek, Koppl gives us such a theory. This includes a theory of 'Big Players', demonstrating that discretionary policy interventions create ignorance and uncertainty. The volume uses innovative methods to address many vital problems in economic theory, and connects with many other schools of economics including New Institutional Economics, Constitutional Economics and Post Walsarian Economics.

Imagined Futures

Imagined Futures
Author: Jens Beckert
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2016-06-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0674545893

In a capitalist system, consumers, investors, and corporations orient their activities toward a future that contains opportunities and risks. How actors assess uncertainty is a problem that economists have tried to solve through general equilibrium and rational expectations theory. Powerful as these analytical tools are, they underestimate the future’s unknowability by assuming that markets, in the aggregate, correctly forecast what is to come. Jens Beckert adds a new chapter to the theory of capitalism by demonstrating how fictional expectations drive modern economies—or throw them into crisis when the imagined futures fail to materialize. Collectively held images of how the future will unfold are critical because they free economic actors from paralyzing doubt, enabling them to commit resources and coordinate decisions even if those expectations prove inaccurate. Beckert distinguishes fictional expectations from performativity theory, which holds that predictions tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Economic forecasts are important not because they produce the futures they envision but because they create the expectations that generate economic activity in the first place. Actors pursue money, investments, innovations, and consumption only if they believe the objects obtained through market exchanges will retain value. We accept money because we believe in its future purchasing power. We accept the risk of capital investments and innovation because we expect profit. And we purchase consumer goods based on dreams of satisfaction. As Imagined Futures shows, those who ignore the role of real uncertainty and fictional expectations in market dynamics misunderstand the nature of capitalism.

The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics

The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics
Author: Peter J. Boettke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2015-09-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190259272

The Austrian School of Economics is an intellectual tradition in economics and political economy dating back to Carl Menger in the late-19th century. Menger stressed the subjective nature of value in the individual decision calculus. Individual choices are indeed made on the margin, but the evaluations of rank ordering of ends sought in the act of choice are subjective to individual chooser. For Menger, the economic calculus was about scarce means being deployed to pursue an individual's highest valued ends. The act of choice is guided by subjective assessments of the individual, and is open ended as the individual is constantly discovering what ends to pursue, and learning the most effective way to use the means available to satisfy those ends. This school of economic thinking spread outside of Austria to the rest of Europe and the United States in the early-20th century and continued to develop and gain followers, establishing itself as a major stream of heterodox economics. The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics provides an overview of this school and its theories. The various contributions discussed in this book all reflect a tension between the Austrian School's orthodox argumentative structure (rational choice and invisible hand) and its addressing of a heterodox problem situations (uncertainty, differential knowledge, ceaseless change). The Austrian economists from the founders to today seek to derive the invisible hand theorem from the rational choice postulate via institutional analysis in a persistent and consistent manner. Scholars and students working in the field of History of Economic Thought, those following heterodox approaches, and those both familiar with the Austrian School or looking to learn more will find much to learn in this comprehensive volume.

Consumer Expectations

Consumer Expectations
Author: Richard Thomas Curtin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2019-02-07
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107004691

Proposes a new comprehensive theory about how expectations are formed and how they shape the macro economy.

Getting the Measure of Money: A Critical Assessment of UK Monetary Indicators

Getting the Measure of Money: A Critical Assessment of UK Monetary Indicators
Author: Anthony J. Evans
Publisher: London Publishing Partnership
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018-12-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0255367686

How much money is circulating in the United Kingdom? The question sounds simple. In fact, it is notoriously difficult to answer, because what counts as money is not a straightforward matter. A variety of measures have been advanced, and they tell different stories about the changing supply of money in an economy. These differences are of more than merely academic interest, because measures of the money supply are inputs to the decisions of central banks. Wrong answers can lead to wrong actions, with potentially devastating economic effects. This book examines the measure of money and, in that light, the actions of the Bank of England in in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath. It is essential reading for anyone interested in money, measures of its quantity, and the relationship between the money supply and the economic cycle.

Japan's Financial Slump

Japan's Financial Slump
Author: Yasushi Suzuki
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2011-04-19
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0230307701

This book evaluates the salient features of Japanese relation-based banking, particularly in the post war period, and Anglo-American mode of banking to explain the nature and extent of transition failure that caused prolonged financial and economic slump in Japan.

Financial Stability without Central Banks

Financial Stability without Central Banks
Author: George Selgin
Publisher: London Publishing Partnership
Total Pages: 90
Release: 2018-01-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0255367538

George Selgin is one of the world's foremost monetary historians. In this book, based on the 2016 Hayek Memorial Lecture, he shows how a system of private banks without a central bank can bring about financial stability through self-regulation. If one bank stretches credit too far, it will be reined in by the others before the system as a whole gets out of control. The banks have a strong incentive to ensure an orderly resolution if a particular bank is facing insolvency or illiquidity. Selgin draws on evidence from the era of 'free banking' in Scotland and Canada. These arrangements enjoyed greater financial stability, with fewer banking crises, than the English system with its central bank and the US model with its faulty government regulation. The creation of the Federal Reserve appears to have increased the frequency of financial crises. The book also includes commentaries by Kevin Dowd and Mathieu Bédard. Dowd asks whether free-banking systems should be underpinned by a gold standard, which he regards as a tried-and-tested institution at the heart of their success. Bédard challenges the assumption that the banking sector is inherently unstable and therefore requires state intervention. He argues that increases in government control have made the banking system more prone to crisis.

A Research Agenda for Austrian Economics

A Research Agenda for Austrian Economics
Author: Steven Horwitz
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2023-07-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1800882262

This thought-provoking Research Agenda examines various themes within economic studies that have become active areas of commentary for economists of the Austrian School. Contributors establish their own distinctive interpretations of how an Austrian Research Agenda should appear, displaying plainly that there is no set dogma within Austrian economics.

The Economics of Ignorance and Coordination

The Economics of Ignorance and Coordination
Author: Thierry Aimar
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2014-05-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1781007810

This book clarifies the specific nature of the Austrian theory and restores the unity and open-mindedness of the Austrian school in general. The intention is not to offer a collection of different or parallel ideas, but rather to retrace, from a pedagogic