Hayek: An Overview of His Life and Work

Hayek was born in Vienna, Austria, in the last year of the nineteenth century. His academic career would take him first to London, then to Chicago, Salzburg, and finally, Freiburg. In Vienna, he studied under Friedrich Wieser, one of the leading economists of his generation, and then began research under the direction of his intellectual mentor, Ludwig von Mises. Recruited in 1931 by the London School of Economics, he rapidly became a major academic and policy figure. During his time in London, Hayek became, alongside his colleague Lionel Robbins, engaged in debates in macroeconomics simultaneously with his debate on the problems of economic planning and economic calculation under socialism. Hayek’s vision of the price system and the liberal market order emerged from these debates, after which, for the rest of his career, he sought to rearticulate the epistemic role of institutions that underpin a liberal market order.