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The Average Period Of Production: The History And Rehabilitation Of An Idea

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  • Lewin, Peter
  • Cachanosky, Nicolás

Abstract

Austrian capital theory tried to capture the intuitive and basically undeniable importance that time plays in economic life, but arguably was diverted down a blind alley with Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk’s average period of production, a purely physical measure of ‘roundaboutness’—the length of the production process. For the general case, such a measure is a chimera. But the intuition is strong, and the idea survived and reappeared at various points in the history of capital theory. Almost unknown to economists, an alternative value measure of roundaboutness has existed at least since John Hicks’s formulation of his average period (AP) in 1939, which, coincidentally, was exactly the same measure discovered by the financial actuary Frederick Macaulay in 1938, called by him “Duration†(D). Macaulay’s D, more richly interpreted as Hicks’s AP, is a measure that more appropriately captures what it was that the Austrians struggled to express over many years in their capital theory and in their analysis of the business cycle.

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  • Lewin, Peter & Cachanosky, Nicolás, 2018. "The Average Period Of Production: The History And Rehabilitation Of An Idea," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 40(1), pages 81-98, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jhisec:v:40:y:2018:i:01:p:81-98_00
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. William J. Luther, 2021. "Two paths forward for Austrian macroeconomics," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 289-297, June.
    2. Nicolás Cachanosky, 2021. "Microfoundations and macroeconomics: 20 years," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 279-288, June.
    3. 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.
    4. Nicolás Cachanosky & Peter Lewin, 2018. "The Role of Capital Structure in Austrian Business Cycle Theory," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 33(Summer 20), pages 21-32.
    5. Fratini, Saverio M., 2018. "A note on re-switching and the neo-Austrian concept of the average period of production," MPRA Paper 87306, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Nicolás Cachanosky, 0. "Microfoundations and macroeconomics: 20 years," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 0, pages 1-10.
    7. Saverio M. Fratini, 2019. "A note on re-switching, the average period of production and the Austrian business-cycle theory," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 32(4), pages 363-374, December.
    8. Cameron Harwick, 2022. "Unmixing the metaphors of Austrian capital theory," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 163-176, June.
    9. Peter Lewin & Nicolas Cachanosky, 2020. "Entrepreneurship in a theory of capital and finance—Illustrating the use of subjective quantification," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 41(5), pages 735-743, July.
    10. Cameron Harwick, 2019. "Bubbles and Broad Monetary Aggregates: Toward a Consensus Approach to Business Cycles," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 45(2), pages 250-268, April.

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