Austrian Economics essay contest

[Dante]

I just found out that my senior thesis got an honorable mention after I submitted it to the Carl Menger essay contest. Here's the blog entry about it:

http://www.coordinationproblem.org/2010/10/inaugural-carl-menger-essay-contest-winners.html

Relevant portion:

"The Prize Committee would also like to extend its sincerest thanks to all the entrants. There were some exceptional essays that were not selected. In particular, we would like to make two Honorable Mentions: Chris Cotter from Wake Forest University’s “An Empirical Examination of Austrian Business Cycle Theory in the U.S. Economy since 1954”..."

:-D

Apparently there really weren't many entries at all, but still makes me happy. Just thought I'd share. It says in the comments that they'll make the essays available soon, although mine probably won't be interesting to anyone who's not interested in empirical economics.

[softwareNerd]

Very nice. Congrats!

Do you have a public link to your essay?

Edited October 2, 2010 by softwareNerd

[OCSL]

That's awesome. Google defined empirical economics as

established relationships between economic variables, testing of hypotheses derived from economic theory, policy evaluation, simulation, forecasting, methodology, and econometric methods and measurement.

. If that's correct I'd be interested in reading the essay.

[Dante]

The essay was just posted to the web, here:

http://adamgmartin.com/Site/Essay_Contest_files/CotterABCEmpirical.pdf

The general site with the papers from the winners and others is here:

http://adamgmartin.com/Site/Essay_Contest.html

[OCSL]

Thanks for posting. It's interesting that none of the winners used visuals in their essays as you did.

[softwareNerd]

Dante: It seems that the web-site is no longer accessible. Any other place your essay is posted?

[JASKN]

Dante: It seems that the web-site is no longer accessible. Any other place your essay is posted?

Here you go:

General page and Chris's link

[softwareNerd]

Dante: Interesting paper. I think economics could do with much more such fact-checking.

Your finding about mining etc. raises a question i.e. often wondered about: i.e. whether the Austrian theory as stated by von Mises properly takes into account modern-day consumer credit. Let's take it for granted that the far-removed industries would see more impact from a lower rate. However, suppose we challenge the notion that new money flows to such opportunities first. Suppose, instead, relatively more of the new money flows to consumer credit. Then, wouldn't we expect to see those sectors jump-starting the boom, even though the long-distant industries have a better "theoretical benefit"? Alternatively, consider this: the recent recession has put a new focus on the fact that lenders with money are not all that's needed to create credit, one also needs borrowers with anticipated demand. Perhaps distant industries are not convinced about their brightened prospects until they actually see the money flow to them in the form of revenue, and perhaps it is only then that they seek additional money in the form of investment.