IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/scotjp/v44y1997i1p44-58.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Hayekian Puzzle: Spontaneous Order and the Business Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Ulrich Witt

Abstract

In his early years, F. A. Hayek focused his research on the theory of capital and the business cycle. Later he turned to social philosophy and the theory of a spontaneous economic order. The two phases, it is argued in this paper, correspond to two basically incompatible research programs—general equilibrium theory vs. a theory of adapting, collective learning, and expectation formation. Hayek never reconsidered business cycle theory in the light of his later thought. The paper asks why and discusses what role cyclical fluctuations in aggregate economic activity may have to be play in the theory of spontaneous economic order.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:scotjp:v:44:y:1997:i:1:p:44-58
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-9485.00044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9485.00044
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-9485.00044?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. van den Hauwe, Ludwig, 2006. "Review of Huerta de Soto´s `Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles´," MPRA Paper 49, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. 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.
    3. Edoardo Gaffeo & Mauro Gallegati & Umberto Gostoli, 2015. "An agent-based “proof of principle” for Walrasian macroeconomic theory," Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 150-183, June.
    4. James Caton & Richard E. Wagner, 2015. "Volatility in Catallactical Systems: Austrian Cycle Theory Revisited," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: New Thinking in Austrian Political Economy, volume 19, pages 95-117, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. 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.
    6. Elias Khalil, 1997. "Friedrich Hayek's Theory of Spontaneous Order: Two Problems," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 301-317, December.
    7. Kushal K. Reddy & Vipin P. Veetil, 2023. "Business cycles and the internal dynamics of firms," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 36(1), pages 43-60, March.
    8. Wagner, Richard E., 2012. "A macro economy as an ecology of plans," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 82(2), pages 433-444.
    9. Caldwell, Bruce, 2014. "George Soros: Hayekian?," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 65470, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Dostaler, Gilles, 2001. "La genèse et l’évolution de la théorie des cycles de Hayek," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 77(2), pages 207-230, juin.
    11. 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.
    12. Hanappi Hardy, 2014. "Evolutionary Political Economy in Crisis Mode," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 234(2-3), pages 422-440, April.
    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. Yong Tao, 2016. "Spontaneous economic order," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 467-500, July.

    More about this item

    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:bla:scotjp:v:44:y:1997:i:1:p:44-58. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sesssea.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.