Deficiencies of Austrian Economic thought:

http://conversationwithcrombette.blogspot.com/2010/09/deficiences-of-austrian-economic.html

“[My point] was the Mengerian one that all human endeavors, including the pursuit of scientific truth, require for their realization a rational structure of complementary material resources, that is ‘property.’ Not only is the (voluntary, non-political) ‘gushing forth’ of material resources from sympathetic patrons not inherently corrupting, it is, and was, positively indispensable to the development of all branches of contemporary Austrian economics. As one, who like yourself, takes Menger’s teachings seriously, I love the gushing forth of resources from privates sources and fervently hope, for the sake of my own research and that of other Austrians, that it intensifies in the future.”

I cannot speak any more plainly than that. That was my position in 2003 and remains my position today. Once again: the point of my original post was NOT that subsidized Austrian courses and programs were in some way tainted or inferior. I called Peter Klein’s course a “historic” step forward for the Austrian movement because as an unsubsidized part of a regular graduate mainstream curiculum it reveals the beginning of a more accepting attitude of mainstream economists toward Austrian economics. I hope this movement continues and I welcome and eagerly await the introduction of more graduate courses in Austrian economics at mainstream institutions like Suffolk University and others.

We should applaud Professor Klein’s class, and I have at Coordination Problem. But you are right. At NYU in the 1980s and 1990s, Austrian economics was taught within the standard curriculum of a top 10 department of economics. I know this because I taught there from 1990-1998 and none of my salary was secured through outside funds, but paid out of the general operating funds of the university budget. And this is also true for Professor Kirzner and Professor Rizzo. And was true before me for Professor O’Driscoll and for Professor White. We did use external funds to pay for research support (including summer support), and to support visiting fellows (including Professor Salerno), student support at the graduate level, and of course the weekly colloquium under Professor Rizzo’s direction.

I don’t know details about the operation at NYU since I left in 1998 as well as I did from 1990-1998, but I know that Professor Rizzo still teaches his Ethics and Economics course, and in fact that it is so popular that they had to hold a section section of it where my former student (and now researcher at NYU’s Development Research Institute with Bill Easterly) Adam Martin taught a section of the course. And Professor David Harper, who runs the MA program at NYU, has employed in the curriculum various scholars who have Austrian leanings.

Let me reiterate, Professor Klein’s course is to be celebrated and Professor Salerno is right to do so. It is a great day. And I would hope that many other examples of similar courses crop up all over the place in PhD programs (like Dan Sutter’s course at U of Oaklahoma a few years ago). I am expecting similar courses to be offered at Suffolk University in the not so distant future — they already have a group of really good Austrian students coming through their program (contact Ben Powell for information), and I think Troy State in Alabama might be a school to watch over the next decade as well for these sort of educational developments. I should also point out that Bruce Caldwell teaches a course in the Honors College at Duke, on Hayek and the Austrian School. It is an undergraduate course, but I spoke in it last year and those students were very good.

On GMU, I will just say that we are very grateful for the multiplicity of private donors (individuals and foundations) who have helped our research and educational mission — it has enabled a relatively new state university to develop a PhD program (ranked #42 in PhD programs by the JEL, and #1 PhD program in the South by another study published in Applied Econ), boast of 2 Nobel Prize winners on its faculty, develop close working relationships with 2 other Nobel Prize winners, have among its faculty over the years a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association and a John Bates Clark Medal Winner and to this day have a young economists on the faculty who is ranked in the top 100 most influential economists in the world as ranked by RePC. And GMU as a university was named by US News and World Report a few year ago as the #1 university to watch, and it now consistently ranks in the top research universities in the US and is either the largest or second largest university in Virginia with over 30,000 students and now-a-days has an on-campus population over 5,000 I believe (so is no longer the commuter college it once was). GMU in 2010, is not the GMU of 1980 — a lot has happened in-between. Time to update on the information about the school. And it is also true that Austrian economics has been part of the undergraduate and graduate curriculum throughout those years, and the graduates of that educational program who have either gone into policy work, foundation work, and/or academia are the greatest testimony to the program.

And don’t forget our first-class basketball program!!!!, we not only went to the final four, but Coach L graduates his players.

Maybe I misunderstood what was happening at time, but I saw a major university with a broad acceptance of process-oriented economics 20 years ago, extending all the way down to freshmen.

Make no mistake, I rejoice in the creation of this program at the University of Missouri, and hold tremendous respect for Prof. Klein. I simply don’t understand how this is unprecedented. It would seem that NYU offered this same degree of respect two decades ago.

Perhaps this article might be a ‘start’ to answering your question?

http://mises.org/daily/3784

The Austrian School is gaining momentum.. I feel big changes coming..

Ha, well, seriously this truly is hopeful news.

For example:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/07/09/university-illinois-instructor-fired-catholic-beliefs/

His position was not even paid for by the university, but was held on university property (i.e., my property, I live in Illinois), so they fired him. I heard that he actually got his position back recently after a firestorm of protests, but this event goes to the point I was making. I don’t even know if I would agree with this guy’s views or not – not really the point here. When you do something that the state considers wrong, and they are paying for it in any way, you are screwed.