
Family Tree of Economics - icc97
http://pc.blogspot.com/2010/03/family-tree-of-economics.html
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Matticus_Rex
Though I have strong Austrian sympathies myself, this tree drastically
overemphasizes their importance (and misclassifies Tyler Cowen, who hasn't
been an Austrian since his first year in grad school if I remember correctly).
There are a dozen economists who should have been listed on the other side
before Pascal Salin, and many dozens in the modern era before Reisman and
Salerno. As much as I love Boettke, he's influential primarily as a teacher,
which sets him apart from the rest of this group.

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drcode
Well, there's no arrow on the diagram connecting "Austrian Economics" with
"Modern Mainstream Economics", so the diagram doesn't really make them look
all that important.

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notahacker
It makes them look important in the sense that Boettke is included and
literally hundreds of people with more influence on the history of economic
thought are omitted.

As an illustration of where the diagram creator's favoured economists sit in
relation to mainstream thought that's fair enough, but as a guide to the
overall field of economic thought it's akin to a family tree of "entrepreneur
philosophies" which includes Carnegie, Ford, Welch, Buffett, Gates, Jobs, Musk
and your friends' early stage startups.

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lukifer
Disappointed that Henry George is absent. ;)

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scottlocklin
No distributists either.

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mnorton
Once took a History of Economic Theory course that completely ignored the
Austrians. Nice to see them included

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Mikeb85
Because they're a tiny footnote and are nonexistent nowadays in academia and
economics circles.

I've seen more about Austrians in the last 2 days on HN than in 4 years of
taking Econ in University.

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americanjetset
Having graduated with an Econ degree just 5 years ago, I can tell you that
this is 100% false.

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nabla9
1\. What are current open questions Austrian economists study?

2\. Advances in Austrian economics in last 10-20 years?

This is serious question.

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americanjetset
I have no idea. I'm not an Austrian, but I can tell you that stating they are
"nonexistent" in modern academia is just wrong.

Go look up Peter Boettke at George Mason -- he is a current, publishing
Austrian Economist (he gave a talk at my uni).

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Mikeb85
Lol. Non-existent as in they don't produce any important studies, hardly get
cited, and don't influence mainstream economics. Apart from academia, they're
non existent in industry or in government. The fact a few exist in
universities doesn't make them relevant.

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naravara
>Apart from academia, they're non existent in industry or in government.

As a point of order. They're non-existent in the parts of government that
actually do economist work, but the political appointee positions are lousy
with them.

And boy do they punch above their weight in the financial press, chambers of
commerce, think-tank circuit, etc.

In other words, Austrians do very well in any place that's sustained through
the largesse of plutocrats and political donors. I wonder why. . .

I also wish their school of thought had an adjectival form that didn't make it
sound like I'm slandering an entire nationality. Some of my best friends are
Austrians! But they're mostly leftists. . .

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Mikeb85
> financial press, chambers of commerce, think-tank circuit, etc.

Where? It seems most of the economists in these circles ascribe to the
Friedman/Chicago school of thought.

> But they're mostly leftists. . .

Even though Austrian economics is associated with the right wing, right wing
economists by and large have nothing to do with the Austrian school.

Friedman, Greenspan, Mankiw, Laffer et al are certainly not Austrians.

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CaptainSwing
I'm disappointed (though not surprised) to see Marx so marginalised. In
particular, Schumpeter was in massive debt to Marx, as is quite clear from
reading Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. The whole idea of creative
destruction, for example, which is popular up to the day, is basically lifted
straight from Marx. Of course, the evolutionary economists who consider
themselves in Schumpeters legacy, tend to ignore this link too.

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tareqak
The creator seems/seemed to be taking suggestions to improve it. I'd encourage
people who have improvements to suggest to suggest them, and/or create their
own version using their own tools e.g. graphviz.

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quadrangle
Where's chartalists / neochartalists / MMT?

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notahacker
In terms of where they'd sit, you can pretty much draw a line from Keynes via
(to an extent) Joan Robinson and other post Keynesians to MMT

In terms of _why aren 't they on there_ it's because they're really not that
influential, (as pointed out elsewhere, the family tree does massively
overstate the influence of Austrian Economics and includes some very minor
economists associated with that school but that's clearly a reflection of the
creator's personal preferences. Cairnes and Nassau Senior are odd choices
too). Not many people who weren't hardcore MMTers would think Randy Wray or
Bill Mitchell should be on there ahead of the likes of Arrow, Solow, Tobin,
Mundell Prescott etc and even within post-Keynesianism there are bigger names
in macro.

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ggm
I would love the arc post-Marx to be more complete.

For instance, it could have Paul Sweezy and Paul A Baran on it.

