To Graphically See How the Interest Rate Regulates the Intertemporal Allocation of Resources, We Combine the NPV and Loanable Funds Diagrams

The crossover rate is the interest rate at which the two NPV [net present value] profiles cross. The wooden bridge has a higher NPV ranking when the interest rate is above the crossover rate, and the steel bridge has a higher NPV ranking when the interest rate is below the crossover rate. The two profiles cross because the steel bridge has a flatter profile than the wooden bridge. The steel bridge’s flatter NPV profile reflects that the net present value of the steel bridge is more interest rate sensitive than the net present value of the wooden bridge. When the interest rate changes by a given amount, the percentage change in the net present value of the steel bridge is greater than the percentage change in the net present value of the wooden bridge. In general, long-term projects are more interest rate sensitive than short-term projects. 

The interest rate regulates the intertemporal allocation of resources in the present value approach to economic calculation. To demonstrate, Figure 3 combines the NPV diagram and the loanable funds diagram. In Figure 3, the interest rate determined in the loanable funds market is greater than the crossover rate, so the wooden bridge has a higher NPV ranking. In this case the investor will allocate resources to the wooden bridge. 

Now suppose there is a change in consumer preferences so that consumers save more and consume less. The increase in the supply of savings causes the supply of loanable funds curve to shift to the right, from S to S′. The increase in saving reduces the interest rate and increases the amount of investment. 

Figure 4 shows that the increase in saving by consumers changes the investor’s NPV rankings. At the lower interest rate the NPV rankings tell the investor to allocate resources to the steel bridge. . . . 

Figure 4 shows how the interest rate coordinates the actions of consumers, savers, and investors by adjusting investors’ NPV rankings to reflect changes in the saving behavior of consumers.

—Edward W. Fuller, “The Marginal Efficiency of Capital,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 16, no. 4 (Winter 2013): 386-388.

Mises and Keynes Adopted Different Approaches to Economic Calculation: Mises Used NPV and Keynes Used MEC

The purpose of this paper is to show how Keynesian economics represents a justification for fractional reserve banking and why this justification is fundamentally flawed. In contrast to other examinations of Keynes’s theory, this paper will highlight the marginal efficiency of capital. Like Ludwig von Mises, Keynes was a financial economist who gave economic calculation a central role in his theory. But Mises and Keynes adopted different approaches to economic calculation: Mises used the net present value and Keynes used the marginal efficiency of capital. Importantly, Keynes argued that the marginal efficiency of capital and the net present value yield identical results. Keynes was wrong: the marginal efficiency of capital contradicts the net present value, and, therefore, it is a logically defective approach to economic calculation. Consequently, Keynesian economics is not a viable justification for fractional reserve banking.

—Edward W. Fuller, “Keynes and Fractional Reserve Banking: The NPV vs. MEC,” Procesos de Mercado: Revista Europea de Economía Política 15, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 41-42.

The Theory of Effective Demand Represents Keynes’s Attack on the Loan-Market Theory

 The pre-Keynesian analysis of fractional reserve banking can be illustrated with the loan market theory, the theory of multiple deposit creation, and the net present value. Together, these three theories support 100 percent reserve banking. But Keynes wrote to Irving Fisher, “on the matter of 100 per cent money I have, however, as you know, some considerable reservations.” So how can Keynes reject 100 percent reserves? He accepted the theory of multiple deposit creation, and he accepted the theory of DCF [discounted cash flow] analysis. Thus Keynes’s most obvious departure from the pre-Keynesians was his attack on the loan-market theory.

The Keynesian theory has three components: (1) the theory of effective demand, (2) the liquidity preference theory, and (3) the marginal efficiency of capital. The theory of effective demand represents Keynes’s attack on the loan-market theory. As noted, in the loan-market theory, the interest rate is the price that adjusts to balance saving and investment. However, Keynes explicitly rejected the theory. Instead, in his theory of effective demand, the level of income is the factor that adjusts to equalize saving and investment. If investment is greater (less) than saving, then income will rise (fall) until saving equals investment. In the Keynesian theory, income replaces the interest rate as the equilibrator of saving and investment.

—Edward W. Fuller, “Keynes and Fractional Reserve Banking: The NPV vs. MEC,” Procesos de Mercado: Revista Europea de Economía Política 15, no. 1 (Spring 2018): 54.

Keynes’s Doctrines Take Us Back to the Pre-Scientific Stage of Economics When the Whole Working of the Price Mechanism Was Not Yet Understood

I cannot help regarding the increasing concentration on short-run effects—which in this context amounts to the same thing as a concentration on purely monetary factors—not only as a serious and dangerous intellectual error, but as a betrayal of the main duty of the economist and a grave menace to our civilisation. To the understanding of the forces which determine the day-to-day changes of business, the economist has probably little to contribute that the man of affairs does not know better. It used, however, to be regarded as the duty and the privilege of the economist to study and to stress the long effects which are apt to be hidden to the untrained eye, and to leave the concern about the more immediate effects to the practical man, who in any event would see only the latter and nothing else. The aim and effect of two hundred years of continuous development of economic thought have essentially been to lead us away from, and ‘behind’, the more superficial monetary mechanism and to bring out the real forces which guide long-run development. I do not wish to deny that the preoccupation with the ‘real’ as distinguished from the monetary aspects of the problems may sometimes have gone too far. But this can be no excuse for the present tendencies which have already gone far towards taking us back to the pre-scientific stage of economics, when the whole working of the price mechanism was not yet understood, and only the problems of the impact of a varying money stream on a supply of goods and services with given prices aroused interest. It is not surprising that Mr. Keynes finds his views anticipated by the mercantilist writers and gifted amateurs: concern with the surface phenomena has always marked the first stage of the scientific approach to our subject. But it is alarming to see that after we have once gone through the process of developing a systematic account of those forces which in the long run determine prices and production, we are now called upon to scrap it, in order to replace it by the short-sighted philosophy of the business man raised to the dignity of a science.

—F. A. Hayek, The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 12, The Pure Theory of Capital, ed. Lawrence H. White (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007), 368.

The Unfortunate Distinction between Macroeconomics and Growth Theory Derives from the Inadequate Attention to the Inter-Temporal Capital Structure

Capital-based macroeconomics rejects the Keynes-inspired distinction between macroeconomics and the economics of growth. This unfortunate distinction, in fact, derives from the inadequate attention to the inter-temporal capital structure. Conventional macroeconomics deals with economy-wide disequilibria while abstracting from issues involving a changing stock of capital; modern growth theory deals with a growing capital stock while abstracting from issues involving economy-wide disequilibria. With this criterion for defining the subdisciplines within economics, the thorny issues of disequilibrium and the thorny issues of capital theory are addressed one at a time. Our contention is that economic reality mixes the two issues in ways that render the one-at-a-time treatments profoundly inadequate. Economy-wide disequilibria in the context of a changing capital structure escape the attention of both conventional macroeconomists and modern growth theorists. But the issues involving the market’s ability to allocate resources over time have a natural home in capital-based macroeconomics. Here, the short-run issues of cyclical variation and the long-run issues of secular expansion enjoy a blend that is simply ruled out by construction in mainstream theorizing. 

—Roger W. Garrison, Time and Money: The Macroeconomics of Capital Structure, Foundations of the Market Economy (London: Routledge, 2002), 34.

Competition and Monopoly in Classical Economics in Contrast to Neoclassical Economics

The founders of the discipline did not reason about competition within an intellectual matrix comparable to that which dominates the mind grounded in neoclassical method. The classicists saw the market as an incessant discovery process by which consumer preferences and the least-cost methods of satisfying those preferences were revealed. The entrepreneur was indispensable to this process, for he possessed a comparative advantage in gathering and weighing dispersed and often conflicting signals. That is, the entrepreneur existed because judgments had to be made, as contrasted with the neoclassical vision, in which the only acceptable behaviour of firms is to mechanically reallocate capital in response to a new set of perfect-information emissions—provided like manna from heaven, indiscriminately and simultaneously—to the roboticked helmsmen of each firm. In classical economics, to summarize, competition was the process of action and reaction by which firms learned what to produce and how to produce; the relative absence of these adaptive forces was associated with the complacency induced by the privilege of monopoly. 

—Frank M. Machovec, Perfect Competition and the Transformation of Economics, Foundations of the Market Economy (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 15-16.

On the Danger of Considering Only Equilibrium and the Foolishness of Claiming All Theory Should Be Equilibrium Theory

This informational characteristic of equilibrium serves to explain why equilibrium does not provide an adequate framework for studying how an economic system solves the knowledge problem involved in discovering profit opportunities: in equilibrium the problem is already solved. To the extent that many observed market phenomena arise as a consequence of this knowledge problem, an economics interested exclusively in equilibrium would never be able to explain them satisfactorily. Specifically, such an economics is unable to say much about any informational role that prices may perform in disequilibrium. An economic theory of disequilibrium is necessary for this task. 

Many economists appear to be reticent about studying disequilibrium situations, both because they believe that most economic phenomena of interest will, sooner or later, be accommodated within an equilibrium framework, and because they fear that a concern with disequilibrium is synonymous with the abandonment of rigorous economic theorizing. However, some have started to take a different attitude and to point out that much is missing by neglecting the study of disequilibrium. Because their remarks to this effect do not seem to have received much attention, they will be quoted here at some length. One example is provided by Frank Hahn’s (1984:4) comments regarding the ‘danger’ of considering ‘nothing but equilibrium’ and the ‘foolishness’ of claiming ‘that all theory should be equilibrium theory’:

What is plain is that by narrowing our viewpoint in this manner we shall remove a great deal of interest and importance from scrutiny. For instance, imposing the axiom that the economy is at every instant in competitive equilibrium simply removes the actual operation of the invisible hand from the analysis. By postulating that all perceived Pareto-improving moves are instantly carried out all problems of co-ordination between agents are ruled out. Economic theory thus narrowly constructed makes many important discussions impossible.

—Esteban F. Thomsen, Prices and Knowledge: A Market-Process Perspective, Foundations of the Market Economy (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2002), 10-11.

Neoclassical Economics Is Really Mathematics: Business Firms Are Merely Formulas; There Are No People, No Institutions; Entrepreneurship Has Been Ignored

The problem of entrepreneurship for economists is that the best-developed and best-understood part of economic theory—neoclassical economics—is really mathematics. Business firms in that system are merely formulas, “production function.” There are no people, no institutions; it is a timeless paradigm of resources shifting and forth according to changes in relative prices and costs. This has meant that entrepreneurship, the most forceful, dramatic, and obvious phenomenon in all of economic life, has perforce been ignored by theoretical economists in their story of how economic events happen. 

—Jonathan R. Hughes (1986 [1965]: x)

As the title of my book—An Entrepreneurial Theory of the Firm— shows, the goal of this work is to introduce the “most forceful, dramatic, and obvious phenomenon in all economic life”—namely entrepreneurship—into the theory of the firm. Indeed, the economic theory of the firm, like most of the rest of economic theory, does not really make room for entrepreneurial activity and thus does not account for the most fundamental aspect of the market process. 

Firms have always puzzled economists. They are an empirical phenomenon that must be explained along with other phenomena that constitute the market system. However, firms have never been really incorporated in conventional economic theory, thus my purpose in the following pages is to give an explanation for the emergence and the growth of firms in the marketplace that would be consistent with the approach of th4e modern Austrian school. This is an inquiry into the nature of the relationship that exists between firms and markets.

—Frédéric E. Sautet, introduction to An Entrepreneurial Theory of the Firm, Foundations of the Market Economy (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 1.

Economic Theory Is Unending, Because We Are Confronted with an OPEN (NOT Closed) System

The implication of these observations is that economic theory is unending, because we are confronted with an open system. The idea we could have a [closed] ‘system of economic theory,’ say, of the Walrasian type, is a futile one. We may never reach this stage. For the present, this is useless speculation at any rate. The idea at any rate runs afoul of the fact that there can be no formalization of society. Any attempt to formalize will either be self-contradictory or incomplete. But to pursue this observation further would lead us too far into some difficult areas of logic and the philosophy of science and this matter shall therefore only be noted at this occasion. 

The consequences for education follow very quickly: we should never pretend as I fear we do too often, especially in the introductory textbooks, that we can give systematic knowledge to our students. In a wider context, this has been well stated by Paul Valéry when he said that educating means ‘to prepare the young for situations that have never been.’

—Oskar Morgenstern, “Descriptive, Predictive and Normative Theory,” Kyklos: International Review for Social Sciences 25, no. 4 (November 1972): 709.

Hayek Rejected the View that Monetary Disturbances Must Be Attributed to Exogenous Central Bank Action

 In Mises’s theory, the business cycle begins when a central bank exogenously expands the quantity of central bank-issued money and drives the market rate of interest below the “natural” or equilibrium rate consistent with intertemporal coordination. Mises accordingly recommended a monetary regime without central banking, a “free banking” system with competitive market determination of the quantity of money and of the loan rate of interest. In clear contrast to Mises, and explicitly drawing on the Swedish economist Knut Wicksell, Hayek in his early writings consistently and repeatedly rejected the view that monetary disturbances must be attributed to exogenous central bank action. He considered the competitive commercial banking system to be at least equally responsible, because it responds to changes in loan demand in a disequilibrating way. By Hayek’s own account the “sole purpose” of the fourth chapter of his Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle was “to show that the cycle is not only due to ‘mistaken measures by monopolistic bodies’ (as Professor Löwe assumes), but that the reason for its continuous recurrence lies in an ‘immanent necessity of the monetary and credit mechanism.’ ” 

—Lawrence H. White, “Why Didn’t Hayek Favor Laissez Faire in Banking?” History of Political Economy 31, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 754-755.

The Fatal Error of Rousseau and the Jacobins (French Revolution) Was to Resurrect the ANCIENT Ideal of COLLECTIVE Freedom in the Modern World

[Benjamin] Constant’s discussion of the ancient polis, or city-state, is celebrated. Max Weber took what he called “the brilliant Constant hypothesis” to be a perfect example of the concept of “ideal-type.” Briefly, according to Constant, Ancient Liberty was the ideal of the classical republics of Greece and Rome, and, in the modern time, of writers like Rousseau and Mably. It held that freedom consists in the citizens’ exercise of political power. It is a collective notion of freedom, and it is compatible with—even demands—the total subordination of the individual to the community. While each citizen would be subordinate to the whole, he would have his share in the exercise of total power over the community’s members. 

Ancient Liberty had its roots in the society of those times, a society of slaves and incessant warfare. The idea of Modern Liberty, too, has its roots in its own distinctive society, one based on free labor and peaceful commerce. . . . 

The fatal error of Rousseau and the Jacobins was to attempt to resurrect the ancient ideal in the modern world. Since the modern world has produced an entirely different sort of human personality—what we know as “the individual,” in a sense unknown to the ancients—the result could only be catastrophe. 

But the Jacobin project did not end in 1794. In fact, the essence of the totalitarian movements of the twentieth century was the goal of realizing a collective freedom and creating a uniform and collective type of human being (Soviet Man, National Socialist Man, etc.). As the philosopher of an irreducible pluralism, Constant was the great critic of all such totalitarian pretensions avant la lettre. 

—Ralph Raico, “The Centrality of French Liberalism,” in Classical Liberalism and the Austrian School (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2012), 222-224.

Classical Liberalism Is No Religion, No World View, No Party of Special Interests; It Is Something Entirely Different

 Liberalism is no religion, no world view, no party of special interests. It is no religion because it demands neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and because it has no dogmas. It is no world view because it does not try to explain the cosmos and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing, the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield them from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. . . . [Classical liberalism] has no party flower and no party color, no party song and no party idols, no symbols and no slogans. It has the substance and the arguments. These must lead it to victory.

—Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, ed. Bettina Bien Greaves, trans. Ralph Raico (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005), 150-151.

Sidney and Beatrice Webb Praised the “Cult of Science” of the Soviet Union and Hoped that Scientific Planning Would Save Britain from the Depression

Thus in their two volume work Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? Fabian socialists Sidney and Beatrice Webb praised the “Cult of Science” that they had discovered on their visits to the Soviet Union, and held out the hope that scientific planning on a massive scale was the appropriate medicine to aid Britain in its recovery from the depression. The sociologist Karl Mannheim, who fled Frankfurt in 1933 and ultimately gained a position on the LSE faculty, warned that only by adopting a comprehensive system of economic planning could Britain avoid the fate of central Europe. For Mannheim, planning was inevitable; the only question was whether it was going to be totalitarian or democratic. These economists were joined by other highly respected public intellectuals, from natural scientists to politicians.

If planning was the word on everyone’s lips, very few were clear about exactly what it was to entail. The situation was well captured by Hayek’s friend and LSE colleague Lionel Robbins, who in 1937 wrote:

“Planning” is the grand panacea of our age. But unfortunately its meaning is highly ambiguous. In popular discussion it stands for almost any policy which it is wished to present as desirable. . . . When the average citizen, be he Nazi or Communist or Summer School Liberal, warms to the statement that “What the world needs is planning,” what he really feels is that the world needs that which is satisfactory.

—Bruce Caldwell, ed., editor’s introduction to The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 2, The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents; The Definitive Edition, by F. A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 8-9.

If One Cannot Fight the Nazis One Ought at Least Fight the Ideas Which Produce Nazism

The expanded scope and the inherent difficulties of the material covered in the “Scientism” essay were partly responsible for the slowdown, but it was also due to Hayek’s decision to begin focusing on another project. He announced this in his holiday letter to Machlup, begun in December 1940 in Cambridge (where by this time Hayek had, with the assistance of John Maynard Keynes, secured rooms at King’s College) and finished on New Year’s Day 1941 in Tintagel on the Cornish coast: “at the moment I am mainly concerned with an enlarged and somewhat more popular exposition of the theme of my Freedom and the Economic System which, if I finish it, may come out as a sixpence Penguin volume.” By the summer Hayek would report that a “much enlarged” version of the pamphlet was “unfortunately growing into a full fledged book.” Finally, by October 1941 Hayek told Machlup that he had decided to devote nearly all of his time to what would become The Road to Serfdom:

It [the “Scientism” essay] is far advanced, but at the moment I am not even getting on with that because I have decided that the applications of it all to our own time, which should some day form volume II of The Abuse and Decline of Reason, are more important. . . . If one cannot fight the Nazis one ought at least fight the ideas which produce Nazism; and although the well-meaning people who are so dangerous have of course no idea of it, the danger which comes from them is none the less serious. The most dangerous people here are a group of socialist scientists and I am just publishing a special attack on them in Nature—the famous scientific weekly which in recent years has been one of the main advocates of “planning.”

Hayek’s change in course is understandable. He had begun his great book just as Europe was going to war. Western civilisation itself was at stake, and given that the British government would not allow him to participate directly, writing a treatise on how the world had come to such an awful state was to be Hayek’s war effort, the best he could do “for the future of mankind.” Two years later the prospects for the allies seemed brighter, but a new danger was looming. Hayek increasingly feared that the popular enthusiasm for planning, one that had only increased during the war, would affect postwar policy in England. The Road to Serfdom was intended as a counterweight to these trends. Working on it became his first priority, even if it meant delaying his more scholarly treatment of the historical origins and eventual spread of the doctrines that had in his estimation led to the abuse and decline of reason.

—Bruce Caldwell, ed., editor’s introduction to The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 13, Studies on the Abuse and Decline of Reason: Text and Documents, by F. A. Hayek (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 6-8.

Socialist Economists Erroneously Assume Various Forms of Knowledge to be Given and Display an Excessive Preoccupation with Stationary Equilibrium

In response to socialists who proposed that central planning required only that the planners solve the appropriate set of Walrasian equations, Hayek described the proposal as “humanly impracticable and impossible” and characterized its proponents as having failed to perceive the real nature of the problem. Socialist economists erroneously assumed various forms of knowledge to be “given” when in reality such knowledge is only discovered by people engaged in the competitive process. Moreover, much knowledge is dispersed and specific to time and place, and much knowledge is not transmissible but tacit, pertaining not so much to “what is” as to “how to.” Socialist economists displayed an “excessive preoccupation with the conditions of a hypothetical state of stationary equilibrium,” but actual economies are dynamic, undergoing constant change. Aiming to abolish profits, the socialists overlooked the essential role of profits as an equilibrating force. “To assume that it is possible to create conditions of full competition without making those who are responsible for the decisions pay for their mistakes seems to be pure illusion.”

—Robert Higgs, review of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 10, Socialism and War: Essays, Documents, Reviews, by F. A. Hayek, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 1, no. 1 (Spring 1998): 82.

N. Scott Arnold Demonstrates that Market Socialist Models Possess Systematic Exploitation, NOT the Classic Capitalist Firm

 N. Scott Arnold’s book does not address the history of real existing socialism and the disappointment of these regimes to deliver on their revolutionary promise. This is a work in political, philosophical and economic appraisal of the model of market socialism as offered by the leading theoretical proponents of that system. The economic framework employed to critically assess the model of market socialism is one of the new institutional economics, with a special emphasis on the work on the theory of the firm and contracting (as represented in the work of Coase, Alchian, Demsetz, Williamson and Milgrom and Roberts, but also including an examination of the political process and bureaucracy (as represented in the work of Terry Moe). This makes perfect sense because the focus of the study is on the market socialist claim that workers’ control systems can eliminate the exploitation endemic to capitalist production. What Arnold demonstrates is that it is market socialist models that possess systematic exploitation, not the classic capitalist firm. The well-known concept of opportunism in the new institutionalist literature is employed here to show that it is cooperatives that offer numerable opportunities for opportunism, while the classic capitalist firm has found ways to police this problem.

—Peter J. Boettke, review of The Philosophy and Economics of Market Socialism: A Critical Study, by N. Scott Arnold, Public Choice 91, nos. 3-4 (June 1997): 417-418.

For Mises, Monetary Equilibrium, Like Equilibrium in General, Happens at the INDIVIDUAL Level

Mises’s individualist conception of equilibrium stands in stark contrast to Wicksell’s reliance on broad measures of macroeconomic aggregates. For Mises, the only equilibrium concept that applies to the real world is the plain state of rest. The plain state of rest is a strictly individual condition that is attained after each successful market transaction, when a particular want is fulfilled. It occurs repeatedly during the course of market operations as actors fulfill specific wants, then disappears as market conditions change and new wants are pursued. Individual states of equilibrium, or rest, can only be meaningfully aggregated up to the level of market clearing. That is, markets clear when all participants achieve a plain state of rest. Of course, this aggregate state disappears as quickly as do the individual states. Equilibrium in any broader sense is a useful concept only as an aid to understanding the goal of the market process: if the goal of action is the satisfaction of human wants, then action would cease only when all wants are fulfilled. This final state of rest is an unattainable condition since every change in economic conditions changes the nature of this state. It is a target constantly in flux, always aimed at but never hit.

For Mises, then, monetary equilibrium, like equilibrium in general, happens at the individual level. Each actor wants to keep a cash balance on hand for future transactions, both planned and contingent. This desired cash balance constitutes the individual’s money demand and is based on that individual’s subjective valuation of holding money as compared to their valuation of obtaining more goods or services with that money. The amount of money the individual actually has on hand constitutes his supply of money. Through their spending behavior, individuals will attempt to equate their desired and actual cash holdings.

—Kenneth A. Zahringer, “Monetary Disequilibrium Theory and Business Cycles: An Austrian Critique,” Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 15, no. 3 (Fall 2012): 309-310.

The Subject of the Thesis for Hayek’s Second Doctorate Degree Was the Theory of the Imputation of Value

The subject matter was a complete departure from his preparatory studies at the University of Vienna, where the subject of the thesis for his second doctorate degree was the theory of Zurechnung, the imputation of value. His approach to economics was firmly rooted in the Austrian tradition of the subjective theory of value and marginal utility, where the value of any good was derived from the necessarily subjective demand of individuals. But, as Hayek wrote in an essay published in 1926, “The doctrine of marginal utility makes it possible to equate the subjective value of economic goods with a certain level of utility yielded by them if the good yields this utility directly and in isolation. . . . However, this principle is not immediately applicable to those goods which cannot by themselves satisfy certain needs and wants but which are able to do so only in combination with other economic goods. . . . [T]he problem of the derivation of the value of the individual producer goods from the jointly produced level of utility has entered into the economic literature under the name of Zurechnung (in English, imputation). . . .” And not to underestimate the difficulty, Hayek announces, “Consequently, the whole of economic theory rests on the explanation of the value of producer goods and thus on the theory of imputation.” It is not then surprising that Hayek consistently finds the consequences of monetary imbalances in adverse changes in the relative prices of producer and consumer goods.

—Stephen Kresge, ed., editor’s introduction to The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 5, Good Money, Part I: The New World, by F. A. Hayek (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999), 5.

It Is the Delay in this Adaptation of the Economy Due to Wage and Price Rigidities that Gives Rise to Secondary Deflation

Having thus disposed of the necessity of deflation, how then did, in Hayek’s view, a secondary deflation develop and what would have been an adequate policy response to it? Here the crucial element is the existence of wage and price rigidities:

There can be little question that these rigidities tend to delay the process of adaptation and that this will cause a ‘secondary’ deflation which at first will intensify the depression but ultimately will help to overcome these rigidities. 

From this passage (and similar ones) we can conclude that the remedying effect of the (primary) depression could be successfully fulfilled, were it not for the obstacle of rigid wages and prices. In turn, it is the delay in this adaptation of the economy due to rigidities that gives rise to secondary deflation. 

—Hansjoerg Klausinger, ed., editor’s introduction to The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 8, Business Cycles, Part II, by F. A. Hayek (Carmel, IN: Liberty Fund, 2017), 9-10.

The Depression Represents an Adjustment Process; This Process Can, BUT NEED NOT, Be Accompanied by Deflation

Just at the time when Hayek had entered the scene as an economic theorist in Great Britain, the economies of the major industrial countries found themselves in the midst of what came to be known as the Great Depression, characterised by a slump in production, high rates of unemployment, and a all in prices accompanied by a shrinking circulation of money. As soon as the fall in prices made itself felt, a debate on the proper reaction in terms of monetary policy evolved, in particular on whether the authorities should respond with expansionist policies and relation. Indeed, policies for preventing and counteracting deflation appeared to follow from Hayek’s stance, too, as neutral money to a first approximation corresponded to a policy of stabilising monetary circulation. Yet, as is well known, Hayek—like most of the economists close to the Austrian school—refrained from any such proposals and was extremely cautious with regard to expansionist monetary policies. Therefore a crucial question to be addressed is how Hayek conceived of the phenomenon of deflation and why he remained so hostile to anti-deflation policies.

In order to answer this question it is necessary to reconstruct Hayek’s approach to deflation. To recapitulate, according to Hayek’s theory the crisis is caused by a maladjustment in the structure of production typically initiated by a credit boom, such that the period of production (representing the capitalistic structure of production) is lengthened beyond what can be sustained by the rate of voluntary savings. The necessary reallocation of resources and its consequences give rise to crisis and depression. Thus, the ‘primary’ cause of the crisis is a kind of ‘capital scarcity’ while the depression represents an adjustment process by which the capital structure is adapted. This process can, but need not, be accompanied by deflation. It is in this specific meaning that Hayek speaks of deflation as being ‘secondary’, for example, when referring to “these (in a methodological sense) secondary complications which arise during the depression”, or maintains that “the process of deflation represents only a secondary phenomenon”. It should also be clear that Hayek was propounding the definition of deflation then prevailing in Austrian circles, that is, deflation as a decrease in (the circulation of) money as opposed to the more common meaning of a decrease in prices (or the price level).

—Hansjoerg Klausinger, ed., editor’s introduction to The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 8, Business Cycles, Part II, by F. A. Hayek (Carmel, IN: Liberty Fund, 2017), 5-6.