Austrian Economist Who Should Have Received Nobel Prize

Richard Ebeling emails:

Dear Bob,

I have a new article on the news and commentary website, "EpicTimes," on the "Austrian Economist Who Should Have Received Nobel Prize."


The Nobel Prize in Economics for 2014 was awarded to the French economist, Jean Tirole, for his development of economic tools for governments to better regulate markets and industries.

But free market advocates believe that the more deserving recipient would have been the Austrian School economist, Israel M. Kirzner, who Reuters news agency had earlier said was on the short list for the Nobel award.

For over half a century, Kirzner has contributed to the "Austrian" theory of the competitive market process and the central role of the "alert" and creative entrepreneur as the crucial agent who discovers profit opportunities and brings supplies and demands into greater coordination and balance for the better satisfaction of consumer wants.

He has also focused on the distinct entrepreneurial role in guiding production across time by anticipating the consumer demands in the future through wise investment of capital, an insight that makes it very clear that it is the successful entrepreneurs who do "build it" and help bring about the prosperity and well-being of a wealthy society.

Kirzner, therefore, has warned against the dangers of government intervention and regulation precisely because it interferes with the entrepreneurial market process, political intervention under which the presumption is that the regulators and planners can ever possess the essential knowledge that only the enterprises can know in their respective corners of the market.

And, finally, Kirzner has formulated a "finders-keepers" conception of the right to property and profit, by explaining that discovery of opportunities to use and apply resources in new and innovative ways that justify title to them as much as the settler who tills virgin land.

One can only hope that the those who award the Nobel Prize in Economics will make a wiser choice next year.

http://www.epictimes.com/richardebeling/2014/10/the-austrian-economist-who-should-have-received-nobel-prize/

Best,
Richard