IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sek/iefpro/0402133.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Were Hayek?s Monetary Policy Recommendations Inconsistent?

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Komrska

    (University of Economics, Prague)

  • Marek Hudík

    (Centre for Theoretical Study, Charles University and Academy of Sciences, Prague)

Abstract

Contrary to the received view, we maintain that Hayek?s monetary policy recommendations were not inconsistent. The prevalent perception of early Hayek as the money stream stabilizer and late Hayek as the price level stabilizer is attributable to an unjustified normative interpretation of Hayek?s positive analysis. We argue that in his contributions to monetary theory, Hayek took the goals of monetary policy as exogenously given and analysed the efficiency of different means to achieve these goals. Hayek?s allegedly inconsistent switch from being a critic to an advocate of price level stabilization is explained by a change in the issues on which he focused, rather than by a change in his theoretical views. We also claim that Hayek was always aware that every practical monetary policy involves difficult trade-offs and was thus reluctant to impose his own value judgments about what people should strive for.*We would like to thank Pavel Potu?ák for his helpful comments on an earlier draft. Any mistakes are, of course, ours.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Komrska & Marek Hudík, 2014. "Were Hayek?s Monetary Policy Recommendations Inconsistent?," Proceedings of Economics and Finance Conferences 0402133, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
  • Handle: RePEc:sek:iefpro:0402133
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://iises.net/proceedings/2nd-economics-finance-conference-vienna/table-of-content/detail?cid=4&iid=17&rid=2133
    File Function: First version, 2014
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hayek, F. A., 2012. "Hayek on Hayek," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226321202 edited by Kresge, Stephen & Wenar, Leif, January.
    2. Nicolai Juul Foss, 1995. "More on “Hayek's Transformation”," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 345-364, Summer.
    3. Gerald O’Driscoll & Douglas Rasmussen, 2012. "Did Hayek have a monetary theory of business cycles?," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 25(3), pages 255-262, September.
    4. Lawrence H. White, 2008. "Did Hayek and Robbins Deepen the Great Depression?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(4), pages 751-768, June.
    5. Ulrich Witt, 1997. "The Hayekian Puzzle: Spontaneous Order and the Business Cycle," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 44(1), pages 44-58, February.
    6. Block, Walter & Garschina, Kenneth M, 1996. "Hayek, Business Cycles and Fractional Reserve Banking: Continuing the De-homogenization Process," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 77-94.
    7. White, Lawrence H, 1999. "Hayek's Monetary Theory and Policy: A Critical Reconstruction," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(1), pages 109-120, February.
    8. Gottfried Haberler, 1986. "Reflections on Hayek's Business Cycle Theory," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 6(2), pages 421-435, Fall.
    9. Bruce J. Caldwell, 1988. "Hayek's Transformation," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 20(4), pages 513-541, Winter.
    10. Anthony Carilli & Gregory Dempster, 2008. "Is the Austrian business cycle theory still relevant?," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 21(4), pages 271-281, December.
    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. Martin Komrska & Marek Hudík, 2016. "Hayek’s monetary theory and policy: A note on alleged inconsistency," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 85-92, March.
    2. Simon Bilo, 2021. "Hayek’s Theory of Business Cycles: A Theory That Will Remain Obscure?," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 36(Fall 2021), pages 27-47.
    3. James Caton, 2020. "The evolution of Hayek's thought on gold and monetary standards," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 87(1), pages 386-405, July.
    4. Denis O’Brien, 2014. "Hayek in the history of economic thought," Chapters, in: Roger W. Garrison & Norman Barry (ed.), Elgar Companion to Hayekian Economics, chapter 2, pages 11-46, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Hogan, Thomas L. & White, Lawrence H., 2021. "Hayek, Cassel, and the origins of the great depression," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 181(C), pages 241-251.
    6. Göcen, Serdar, 2015. "F. A. Hayek'in Bilgisizlik Teorisi Çerçevesinde Piyasa, Denge ve Planlama [Market, Equilibrium, and Planning within the Framework of F.A. Hayek's Theory of Ignorance]," MPRA Paper 66811, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. William J. Luther & Mark Cohen, 2016. "On the Empirical Relevance of the Mises–Hayek Theory of the Trade Cycle," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: Studies in Austrian Macroeconomics, volume 20, pages 79-103, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    8. William Luther & Mark Cohen, 2014. "An Empirical Analysis of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 42(2), pages 153-169, June.
    9. Nicolás Cachanosky & Alexander W. Salter, 2017. "The view from Vienna: An analysis of the renewed interest in the Mises-Hayek theory of the business cycle," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 169-192, June.
    10. Douglas A. Irwin, 2011. "Anticipating the Great Depression? Gustav Cassel's Analysis of the Interwar Gold Standard," NBER Working Papers 17597, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Randall G. Holcombe, 2017. "Malinvestment," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 30(2), pages 153-167, June.
    12. Jankovic Ivan & Block Walter, 2019. "Private Property Rights, Government Interventionism and Welfare Economics," Review of Economic Perspectives, Sciendo, vol. 19(4), pages 365-397, December.
    13. Scott Scheall, 2015. "A Hayekian Explanation of Hayek's 'Epistemic Turn'," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-32, September.
    14. G. R. Steele, 2005. "Psychology, social evolution and liberalism: a Hayekian trinity," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 571-586.
    15. Vipin P. Veetil & Lawrence H. White, 2017. "Towards a New Austrian Macroeconomics," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 19-38, March.
    16. Raymond C. Niles, 2017. "The unresolved problem of gratuitous credit in Austrian banking theory," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 30(1), pages 83-105, March.
    17. Nicolas Cachanosky, 2015. "Expectation in Austrian business cycle theory: Market share matters," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 28(2), pages 151-165, June.
    18. Robert C. B. Miller, 2009. "The Austrians And The Crisis," Economic Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 27-34, September.
    19. Douglas A. Irwin, 2014. "Who Anticipated the Great Depression? Gustav Cassel versus Keynes and Hayek on the Interwar Gold Standard," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(1), pages 199-227, February.
    20. William R. Morgan, 2023. "Finance Must Be Defended: Cybernetics, Neoliberalism and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    F. A. Hayek; monetary policy; Austrian business cycle theory; price level stabilization; money stream stabilization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • B53 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Austrian

    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:sek:iefpro:0402133. 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: Klara Cermakova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://iises.net/ .

    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.