SDAE Listserv Information

The Society is happy to announce the creation of a scholarly listserv devoted to the Austrian school of economics. The "AustrianEcon" listserv is devoted to the ideas of the Austrian school of economics and related contributions to the understanding of human action and its consequences.  We aim for as broad a discussion as possible across any disciplines or schools of thought that relate to Austrian economics.  It must be emphasized that the listserv is not a forum for political discussion except to the degree that such issues have a direct connection to the scholarly contributions of the Austrian school both past and present.

Membership in the list is subject to the approval of the list manager.  Membership will be limited to those affiliated with universities, think-tanks, or other scholarly/intellectual organizations.  Exceptions for those not so affiliated will be granted on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the list manager.  SDAE members are automatically eligible for membership. You can request to join the list by emailing the list manager Steve Horwitz at sghorwitz@stlawu.edu .

We strongly encourage members to use the list as a vehicle for the dissemination of their current scholarship.  In particular, discussion of working papers is a very valuable use of the listserv.  Any members wishing to make a paper available for discussion should contact the list manager and the paper will be posed at the SDAE website for list members to access.  Austrian analyses of current contributions to the mainstream economics literature are also strongly encouraged as is discussion of current work in related disciplines (e.g., evolutionary psychology, political science, history, etc.) or traditions in economics (e.g., constitutional political economy, public choice, or various heterodox schools etc.) of which members might be less aware.

AustrianEcon is a moderated listserv.  All messages require approval of the list manager.

SDAE 2008 Meetings: List of Sessions

 Washington DC, November 20-23, 2008 (Thurs-Sun)

The complete list of sessions for the SDAE sessions at the 2008 SEA meetings can be found here (PDF). We have not yet been assigned days and times, and we will let you know when that takes place. We had more submissions than slots for sessions this year, which is a terrific development. Thanks to all who made submissions. Those who have been accepted should watch for email from the Society about registration for the SEAs as that becomes available.

SDAE Annual Meeting Report

The Society's annual dinner meeting was a rousing success, with 61 people in attendance, including a good number of graduate students, and an excellent after-dinner talk by outgoing president Randy Holcombe on entrepreneurship, equilibrium, and economic progress. We again thank Rob Bradley from the Institute for Energy Research and Adrian Moore from Reason Foundation for their continued financial support of the Society and our dinner.

Three significant bits of news from the business meeting are:

1. The Society has been given a $7500 grant from the Koch Foundation to support several projects. We hope to establish non-profit status over the next year and we also hope to use the funds to invite a prominent economist to be part of our sessions at the 2008 meetings. The bulk of the funds will be used to upgrade the website and to maintain it on a more regular basis. Further details on all of these projects will be forthcoming.

2. We hope to better coordinate among the Review of Austrian Economics, the Society and the Austrian Economists blog as complementary sources of information on Austrian economics, and with respect to new articles in the RAE especially. Watch for more links across the three.

3. We are thrilled to announce that our President-elect for 2008 will be Emily Chamlee-Wright from Beloit College. Emily has been on the Executive Committee and involved with the Society and Austrian economics for many years. Next year's meetings are in Washington, DC and Emily will be the session organizer. We'll have a call for papers out sometime after the first of the year. A ballot for the open EC position will be out shortly. Chris Coyne will also be continuing as Vice-president.

The winners of the Smith, FEE, and Lavoie prizes are below.

Smith and FEE Prize Winners for 2007

Smith Center Prize for Best Book

Ted Burczak, Denison University
Socialism After Hayek
University of Michigan Press 2006

Socialism After Hayek reignites the socialist calculation debate by offering perhaps the first attempt to articulate a form of socialism that gives significant scope to market processes and that understands correctly and seriously engages Hayek’s work on socialist calculation and the contributions of more recent Austrian economists.  The first three chapters offers a very sympathetic reading of Hayek and Austrian economics as a legitimate methodological and theoretical alternative to the neoclassical mainstream.  In later chapters, he works from inside Hayek’s system to offer criticisms of his work on the evolution of law and its relationship to the market that open up space for a form of socialism that does not undermine the fundamental role of the market as a discovery and coordination process for dispersed and tacit knowledge.  Specifically,  Burczak argues that workers’ self-management could and should replace the capitalist wage contract and that a large one-time grant from government would enable a wider range of people to participate meaningfully in the market process.  Firms and consumers would still coordinate through market processes, however markets would be bounded by these two major changes.  For its creative and deeply scholarly approach to Hayek and Austrian economics as well as offering the most significant response to the Austrian critique of socialism in at least a generation, Ted Burczak’s Socialism after Hayek is awarded the 2007 Smith Center Prize for Best Book in Austrian Economics.

Foundation for Economic Education Prize for Best Article

Benjamin Powell, Suffolk University
“State Development Planning: Did it Create an East Asian Miracle?”
The Review of Austrian Economics, 2005 18 (3/4): 305-323.

In “State Development Planning: Did it Create an East Asian Miracle?” Ben Powell explores the reason for the large increases in per capita GDP in East Asian countries.  A standard explanation for this “East Asian Miracle” attributes economic growth to state-led industrial planning.  Powell critically analyzes the link between state-led development planning and East Asia’s growth.  Building on the work of Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek and Don Lavoie, Powell argues that the state cannot possess the knowledge necessary to engage in economic calculation to determine which industries to promote.  Extending this logic to East Asia, Powell finds that absent the ability to calculate which industries would promote growth, governments instead promoted industrialization.  Powell also provides an alternative explanation for the growth of East Asian countries.  By looking at economic freedom indices, he concludes that East Asian countries were some of the most economically free in the world.  Powell attributes economic growth in East Asia not to state planning, but instead to entrepreneurship and the positive-sum exchanges and interactions that took place in an environment of economic freedom. For extending and applying the insights of Mises, Hayek and Lavoie to contemporary economic issues, the prize committee determined that “State Development Planning: Did it Create an East Asian Miracle?” is deserving of the FEE Prize for the Best Article in Austrian Economics.

2007 Don Lavoie Memorial Essay Competition Winners

The Society for the Development of Austrian Economics is pleased to announce the winners of the Don Lavoie Memorial Graduate Student Essay Competition. Three prizes are given, each worth $1000, to be used to pay expenses to attend the Southern Economic Association meetings this November in New Orleans, where the winners will present their work on a special panel at 10:00am, Monday, November 19, 2007. Prize awards are contingent on attending the SEA meetings and the SDAE’s annual business meeting and awards banquet.

Daniel D’Amico
George Mason University
"The Use of Knowledge in the Criminal Justice System"

Claudia Williamson
West Virginia University
"Securing Private Property: The Relative Importance of Formal versus Informal Institutions"

This year's prize committee consisted of:

Peter Boettke, George Mason University
Steven Horwitz, St. Lawrence University
David Prychitko, Northern Michigan University
Emily Chamlee-Wright, Beloit College
Virgil Storr, Director of Graduate Student Programs, Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Review of Austrian Economics