Mises, Ludwig von (1881-1973)

Austrian School of economic thought, a prodigious originator in economic theory, and a prolific author. A library of his books would total twenty-one volumes if confined to first editions, forty-eight volumes if all revised editions and translations were included, and still more if the Festschriften and other volumes containing contributions by him were added.

Mises' writings and lectures encompassed economic theory, history, epistemology, government, and political philosophy. His contributions to economic theory include important clarifications on the quantity theory of money, the theory of the trade cycle, the integration of monetary theory with economic theory in general, and a demonstration that socialism must fail because it cannot solve the problem of economic calculation. Mises was the first scholar to recognize that economics is part of a larger science in human action, a science which Mises called "praxeology".

Ludwig von Mises received doctorates in law and economics from the University of Vienna in 1906. In 1909 he became Economic Advisor to the Austrian Chamber of Commerce (comparable to the U.S. Department of Commerce). After serving in World War I, he became Professor of Economics at the University of Vienna and, in 1934, Professor of International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. In 1945 he became Visiting Professor at New York University where he remained until his retirement in 1969. In a lecturing and teaching career that spanned many continents and more than half a century, Mises numbered among his students one Nobel Laureate, F.A. Hayek, two presidents of the American Economic Association, Gottfried Haberler and Fritz Machlup, and many other economists of international reputation.

Bibliography

Works by the Author

His major works are The Theory of Money and Credit (1912), Socialism (1922), Human Action (1949), Theory and History (1957), Epistemological Problems of Economics (1960), and The Ultimate Foundations of Economic Science (1962).