Business Cycles, Part I

by F. A. Hayek, Hansjoerg Klausinger (Editor)

Overview

In the years following its publication, F. A. Hayek’s pioneering work on business cycles was regarded as an important challenge to what later became known as Keynesian macroeconomics. Today, as debates rage on over the monetary origins of the current economic and financial crisis, economists are once again paying heed to Hayek’s thoughts on the repercussions of excessive central bank interventions.

Business Cycles, Part I and Business Cycles, Part II bring together Hayek’s work on what causes periods of boom and bust in the economy. Moving away from the classical emphasis on equilibrium, Hayek demonstrates that business cycles are generated by the adaptation of the structure of production to changes in relative demand. Thus, when central banks artificially lower interest rates, the result is a misallocation of capital and the creation of asset bubbles and additional instability. Part I contains his two major monographs on the topic: Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle and Prices and Production. Part II assembles twelve of his shorter papers on the topic, covering a period from the 1920s to 1981 and revealing the evolution of Hayek’s thought.

In addition to bringing together Hayek’s work on business cycles, these two volumes also include extensive introductions by Hansjoerg Klausinger, placing the writings in intellectual context, including their reception and the theoretical debates to which they contributed.

F. A. Hayek (1899–1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and one of the principal proponents of classical liberal thought in the twentieth century. He taught at the London School of Economics, the Universityof Chicago, and the Universityof Freiburg.

Hansjoerg Klausinger is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at WU, Vienna Universityof Economics and Business.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865979031
Publisher:	Liberty Fund, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/24/2017
Series:	The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

F. A. Hayek (1899-1992), recipient of the Medal of Freedom in 1991 and co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1974, was a pioneer in monetary theory and one of the principal proponents of classical liberal thought in the twentieth century. He taught at the University of London, the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg.

Table of Contents

Editorial Foreword ix

Introduction 1

Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle

Introduction to the Series Lionel Robbins (1933) 49

Preface (1933) 52

Preface to the German Edition, Geldtheorie und Konjunkturtheorie (1929) 57

Preface to the Reprint of the German Edition (1976) 59

Analytical Table of Contents 63

1 The Problem of the Trade Cycle 67

2 Non-Monetary Theories of the Trade Cycle 79

3 Monetary Theories of the Trade Cycle 101

4 The Fundamental Cause of Cyclical Fluctuations 119

5 Unsettled Problems of Trade Cycle Theory 145

Prices and Production

Foreword to the First Edition Lionel Robbins (1931) 169

Preface to the First Edition (1931) 174

Preface to the Second Edition (1935) 176

Preface to the German Edition, Preise und Produktion (1931) 181

Preface to the Reprint of the German Edition (1976) 186

Lecture 1 Theories of the Influence of Money on Prices 193

Lecture 2 The Conditions of Equilibrium between the Production of Consumers' Goods and the Production of Producers' Goods 217

Lecture 3 The Working of the Price Mechanism in the Course of the Credit Cycle 242

Appendix: A Note on the History of the Doctrines Developed in the Preceding Lecture 262

Lecture 4 The Case for and against an 'Elastic' Currency 266

Appendix: Some Supplementary Remarks on 'Neutral Money' 281

Index 285