The Austrian Market Share

Over the generations, the popularity of the Austrian School’s approach to economics has risen, fallen, and risen again. Figure 1 represents a speculative guess at the “market share” of Austrian ideas among academic economists, where “Austrian” is broadly defined as individuals who believe in, or are at least highly sympathetic to, most of the core doctrine emanating from the Austrian School founded by Carl Menger. Even in its resurrected state, only a very small proportion of economists today consider themselves Austrian, and the economics profession is probably far less Austrian in its outlook than a century ago. Presumably the rise in the last generation of Austrian economics’ market share in the academic milieu reflects mainly the empirical fact that Austrian concepts have proven useful and relevant in explaining contemporary human economic action. Part of the change in popularity of any school of thought, however, also relates to the way ideas are marketed. The mode of dissemination may be important in determining the extent to which the rise in Austrian market share observed over the past generation continues in the next one. Part of the issue, of course, relates to how and what Austrians say—what McCloskey (1985) calls the “rhetoric” of economics. But much also relates to where Austrians speak. Should Austrians, against long odds, try to penetrate the mainstream forums for disseminating ideas, especially the leading economic journals? Or, should they continue to build an intellectual infrastructure that reaches a small but growing audience of sympathetic academics and parts of the broader public through think tanks like the Mises Institute and journals like the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Review of Austrian Economics? This article argues that there are advantages to both approaches, and that under some circumstances, the overall dissemination of Austrian economics is maximized by attempting to publish in mainstream outlets, whereas in other cases,