Investors And Austrian Economics

Mises Institute: In recent years, we’ve seen more and more Austrian-tinged economic analysis coming from investors like Mark Spitznagel and Jim Rogers, to just name two. As someone personally involved in the investment world, have you yourself seen growth in Austrian ideas among investors and similar professionals?

Robert Blumen: There has been tremendous growth in interest in Austrian economics among financial professionals. I started an interest group for Austrians in Finance on LinkedIn which, in a few years, has grown to almost 2,000 members from the US, South America, East, Southern, and Central Asia, Africa, and Eastern and Western Europe. Peter Schiff appears regularly on financial shows. The Mises Institute drew hundreds of people from the investment world to an event in Manhattan.

Since 2002, a number of Austrian-themed books in financial economics have come out. Alongside titles from established writers such as James Grant, there is Detlev Schlichter’s Paper Money Collapse, and several books by Peter Schiff. There are many popular Austrian bloggers such as Grant Smith and Robert Wenzel. Over two million viewers watched a 2006 video in which a parade of condescending media hosts heap ridicule on Peter Schiff, who, to his credit, did not back down in the face of their smugness.

MI: Did the financial crisis of 2008 help increase the sympathy for Austrian economics?

RB: I have heard the same story from many people in finance. When the bust of 2000 (or 2008) happened, it did not fit what they had been taught in school, nor could it be explained within the belief systems of their colleagues in financial markets. Their next step was reading, searching for answers, and then, finding the writings of Mises, Hayek, or Rothbard that enabled them to make sense of what had happened.

To answer your question, yes, I think that the failure of the popular economic theories – evidenced by these inexplicable crises – has driven the search for superior ideas. The Mises Institute has been publishing for years, explaining these boom and bust cycles with Austrian economics. When people searched, many of them ended up at mises.org.