Competition, economic planning, and the knowledge problem / Israel M. Kirzner ; edited and with an introduction by Peter J. Boettke and Frédéric Sautet.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kirzner, Israel M., author.

Contributor:

Boettke, Peter J., editor.

Sautet, Frédéric E., editor.

Series:

Collected works of Israel M. Kirzner.

The collected works of Israel M. Kirzner

Standardized Title:

Works. Selections

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Competition.

Prices.

Economic policy.

Economics--Philosophy.

Economics.

Physical Description:

xiv, 367 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Carmel, Indiana : Liberty Fund, Inc., [2018]

Summary:

No other Economist in recent times has been so closely identified with the Austrian School of economics as Israel M. Kirzner, professor emeritus of economics at New York University. A leader of the generation of Austrian economists after Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek, Kirzner has been recognized as one of the minds behind the revival of entrepreneurship and market process theory in the twentieth century. Competition, Economic Planning, and the Knowledge Problem expands on the ideas Kirzner first discussed in Competition and Entrepreneurship-the role of the entrepreneur and its relation to the determination of prices and the coordination of individuals' plans-as well as economic planning, the knowledge problem, market-process theory, and the parts played by information, knowledge and advertising. It includes a paper on F.A. Hayek's theory of market coordination and the Austrian business-cycle theory-seen now for the first time in its original English. Over the course of this book's nineteen articles and one monograph, Kirzner stresses the fundamental idea that competition is a rivalrous process of entrepreneurial activity in which individuals and firms discover, innovate, and outdo each other. Kirzner discusses why this dynamic view of the market process is so important to understand, particularly in the contexts of economic planning and the workings of competitive markets. In Kirzner's view, free market competition has epistemic properties that cannot be replicated in other ways. Indeed, though knowledge is present in all economic interaction It is also dispersed in the economy such that no individual mind can ever centralize it all. This "knowledge problem" implies, as Hayek has argued, the impossibility of central planning. Kirzner's contribution is to show that, ultimately, it is only the free, competitive entrepreneurial process that can overcome this problem through generation of knowledge that enables a relatively efficient, yet perfectible, allocation of scarce resources. Book jacket.

Contents:

The Nature of Competition

Capital, Competition, and Capitalism 3

Prices, the Communication of Knowledge, and the Discovery Process 18

Competition and the Market Process: Some Doctrinal Milestones 33

The Driving Force of the Market: The Idea of "Competition" in Contemporary Economic Theory and in the Austrian Theory of the Market Process 50

The Irresistible Force of Market Competition 67

Coordination, Economic Planning, and the Knowledge Problem

Economic Planning and the Knowledge Problem 75

Knowledge Problems and Their Solutions: Some Relevant Distinctions 87

The Economic Calculation Debate: Lessons for Austrians 106

Hedgehog or Fox? Hayek and the Idea of Plan-Coordination 127

Calculation, Competition, and Entrepreneurship 150

Comments on the Debate between Professors Leontif and Stein on National Economic Planning 169

Hayek's Theory of the Coordination of Markets: A Commentary to Accompany the Facsimile Edition of Hayek's Preise und Production 174

Information, Knowledge, and Advertising

The Open-Endedness of Knowledge: Its Role in the FEE Formula 197

Knowing about Knowledge: A Subjectivist View of the Role of Information 206

Information-Knowledge and Action-Knowledge 222

Comments on R. N. Langlois, "From the Knowledge of Economics to the Economics of Knowledge: Fritz Machlup on Methodology and on the 'Knowledge Society'" 228

Advertising 232

Advertising in an Open-Ended Universe 246

Two Essays on Markets

How Markets Work: Disequilibrium, Entrepreneur ship, and Discovery 257

Foreword by Professor Colin Robinson 257

Introduction 260

The Background in the History of Economic Ideas 263

Problems in the Standard Theory of Price 271

The Theory of Entrepreneurial Discovery 280

New Perspectives Provided by the Theory of Entrepreneurial Discovery 301

Conclusion 321

Further Reading 322

Entrepreneurial Discovery and the Competitive Market Process: An Austrian Approach 323.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780865978621

086597862X

9780865978638

0865978638

OCLC:

1013992664