Lynne Kiesling
The last couple of weeks have been crazy here in KP land, with things I’ll be able to share in a bit. Today I am off to England (YAY!) for a Liberty Fund conference that I helped to organize. The readings are selections from Schumpeter, Coase, and Hayek.
Here’s the motivation: lots of economists and political scientists with whom I work and talk are inspired and motivated by ideas from Schumpeter, Coase, and Hayek, yet we don’t usually read them together or think of them together. What are the common themes in their ideas that inspire us so?
The Schumpeter readings are the newest territory for me, because my reading of Schumpeter is not as extensive as it is of Coase and Hayek. We’re reading some selections from his Theory of Economic Development, and some of his business cycle writings, in addition to the material with which I am familiar in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
In rereading Hayek for this conference, two of the readings have struck me as even more profound than they have ever struck me before: The Meaning of Competition, from Individualism and Economic Order (1948), and the first two chapters of Law, Legislation, and Liberty, Volume 1. They are incredibly relevant to some of the issues involved in the inertial state of retail electricity competition that I just mentioned.
More on these ideas after the conference.
Jeez! Homework!