IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/gre/wpaper/2024-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Hayek's Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Harald Hagemann

    (Universität Hohenheim)

Abstract

The essay begins with Hayek's grappling with the equilibrium framework as the starting point for the analysis of cyclical fluctuations and the fundamental methodological challenge raised by Lowe's attack against the construction of business-cycle theory within the system of general economic equilibrium. It then shows that Hayek elaborated his Austrian theory of the business cycle on the innovative combination of five building blocks: (1) Wicksell's theory of the cumulative process where price changes are caused by the discrepancy between the market rate and the natural (equilibrium) rate of interest; (2) Mises's theory of money and credit in which banks artificially lowering the money (market) rate of interest are responsible for overinvestment and a misallocation of resources which necessarily has to be corrected; (3) Böhm-Bawerk's theory of capital with its emphasis on the time structure of the production process; (4) Cantillon effects of changes in the money supply on the price structure and hence on the structure of production (non-neutrality of money); (5) Ricardo effects of a shortage of consumption goods on the production of investment goods (disproportionality of circulating and fixed capital).

Suggested Citation

  • Harald Hagemann, 2024. "Hayek's Austrian Theory of the Business Cycle," GREDEG Working Papers 2024-06, Groupe de REcherche en Droit, Economie, Gestion (GREDEG CNRS), Université Côte d'Azur, France.
    • Handle: RePEc:gre:wpaper:2024-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://195.220.190.85/GREDEG-WP-2024-06.pdf
    File Function: First version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Plosser, Charles I, 1989. "Understanding Real Business Cycles," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 51-77, Summer.
    2. Scheide, Joachim, 1986. "New classical and Austrian business cycle theory: Is there a difference?," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 1317, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Axel Leijonhufvud, 1997. "The Wicksellian Heritage," Department of Economics Working Papers 9705, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    4. Dal-Pont Legrand, Muriel & Hagemann, Muriel Dal-Pont Legrand and Harald, 2013. "Lutz and Equilibrium Theories of the Business Cycle," OEconomia, Editions NecPlus, vol. 2013(02), pages 241-262, June.
    5. Simon Kuznets, 1930. "Equilibrium Economics and Business-Cycle Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 44(3), pages 381-415.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hagemann Harald, 2019. "Impulses and Propagation Mechanisms in Equilibrium Business Cycles Theories: From Interwar Debates to DSGE “Consensus”," Working Papers halshs-02386344, HAL.
    2. Ghassan Dibeh, 2001. "Time Delays and Business Cycles: Hilferding's model revisited," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 329-341.
    3. Marvin Goodfriend, 2004. "Monetary policy in the new neoclassical synthesis : a primer," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 90(Sum), pages 21-45.
    4. Tony Caporale & Barbara McKiernan, 1998. "The Fischer Black Hypothesis: Some Time‐Series Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 765-771, January.
    5. Andrei Polbin & Sergey Drobyshevsky, 2014. "Developing a Dynamic Stochastic Model of General Equilibrium for the Russian Economy," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 166P, pages 156-156.
    6. Caleb Stroup, 2017. "International Deal Experience And Cross-Border Acquisitions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(1), pages 73-97, January.
    7. Jean-Sébastien Lenfant, 2021. "Eugen (Evgeny Evgenievich) Slutsky (1880-1948)," Working Papers hal-03628273, HAL.
    8. Letendre, Marc-Andre, 2004. "Semi-parametric predictions of the intertemporal approach to the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 363-386, December.
    9. Campbell, John Y., 1994. "Inspecting the mechanism: An analytical approach to the stochastic growth model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 463-506, June.
    10. Sushant Acharya & Julien Bengui & Keshav Dogra & Shu Lin Wee, 2022. "Slow Recoveries and Unemployment Traps: Monetary Policy in a Time of Hysteresis," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(646), pages 2007-2047.
    11. George Bitros, 2008. "Why the structure of capital and the useful lives of its components matter: A test based on a model of Austrian descent," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(4), pages 301-328, December.
    12. Jeff E. Biddle, 2014. "Retrospectives: The Cyclical Behavior of Labor Productivity and the Emergence of the Labor Hoarding Concept," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(2), pages 197-212, Spring.
    13. Aadland, David, 2005. "Detrending time-aggregated data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 287-293, December.
    14. Watson, Mark W, 1993. "Measures of Fit for Calibrated Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 1011-1041, December.
    15. Reijnders, Jan P.G., 2009. "Trend movements and inverted Kondratieff waves in the Dutch economy, 1800-1913," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 90-113, June.
    16. Mulligan, Robert F., 2010. "A fractal comparison of real and Austrian business cycle models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(11), pages 2244-2267.
    17. Visser, H., 1987. "A survey of recent developments in monetary theory," Serie Research Memoranda 0003, VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Econometrics.
    18. Robert F. Mulligan, 2015. "Roger W. Garrison and the Integration of Austrian and Mainstream Macroeconomics," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 30(Winter 20), pages 59-79.
    19. Hoffmaister, Alexander W. & Roldos, Jorge E., 2001. "The Sources of Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Developing Countries: Brazil and Korea," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 213-239, April.
    20. Olkhov, Victor, 2018. "Economic Transactions Govern Business Cycles," MPRA Paper 87207, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • B25 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary; Austrian; Stockholm School
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gre:wpaper:2024-06. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Patrice Bougette (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/credcfr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.