Germany’s approach to solving the Eurozone crisis is supposedly based on the ideas of Walter Eucken (1891-1950), the founder of ordoliberalism. In this and other contexts, Eucken’s work has been described as being in direct opposition to that of John Maynard Keynes. Our paper aims to clarify and differentiate the Read more…
Friedrich Hayek devoted the later part of his career to investigating the legal rules required for the existence of a free society. The subject of Daniel Nientiedt’s paper is Hayek’s treatment of legal positivism, which he thought was the most important intellectual movement responsible for the decline of liberal institutions Read more…
This piece is part of the special issue of the Journal of Contextual Economics: Schmoller’s Jahrbuch. Liberalism is losing ground, while populist or even authoritarian nationalist regimes are on the rise. This article argues that the causes of the decline are, at least partly, endogenous, that a narrow focus on Read more…
This piece is part of the special issue of the Journal of Contextual Economics: Schmoller’s Jahrbuch. This paper argues that one of the weaknesses of the neoliberals of the 1940s was their failure to develop a positive program of individual emancipation. It is demonstrated that in conversation with the critics Read more…
The latest special issue of the Journal of Contextual Economics: Schmoller’s Jahrbuch on the topic “Liberalism in the 21st century: Lessons from the Colloque Walter Lippmann” features a variety of intriguing contributions from many NOUS members. The full papers is freely accessible here. All papers will also be uploaded on Read more…
The origin of economic niches, conceived as potential markets, has been mostly neglected in economic theory. Ecological niches emerge as new species evolve and fit into a web of interactions, and the more species come into existence, the more (exponentially or power-law distributed) ecological niches emerge. In parallel fashion, economic Read more…
The humble idea that experts are ordinary human beings leads to surprising conclusions about how to get the best possible expert advice. All too often, experts have monopoly power because of licensing restrictions or because they are government bureaucrats protected from both competition and the consequences of their decisions. In Read more…
This article studies the few works James Buchanan wrote on education from the end of the 1950s to the early 1970s. These neglected works tell us important things about how Buchanan’s ideas on constitutions evolved through time, because they provided Buchanan with the opportunity to apply his ideas about constitutions Read more…