How many Austrian economists are out there? Here I present a list of them.

In a previous post (spanish), I listed some Austrian work published in listed (JCR) journals.

First, who counts as an Austrian economist? I rely on these two conditions:

  • Have published in an Austrian journal, not in a guest or special review, but because of a particular interest in Austrian themes
  • Cite positively and use meaningfully, Austrian theory and/or authors
  • Would anyone else think they are/are not Austrian? (Given this, feel free to contact me to express your complaint)

Nevertheless, my criteria will exclude 'Austrian-friendly' economists, but still I think this list provides an approximation of the total number of Autrian economists that are active today.

From a brief overview of the CVs of the economist presented below, it can be inferred that the journals Austrians typically publish in are:

  • Quarterly Review of Austrian Economics
  • Advances in Austrian Economics
  • Review of Austrian Economics
  • Public Choice
  • Independent Review

With some lone exception at NYU, Duke, Indiana or King's College, there are no Austrians at top institutions.

George Mason University seems to be the only department of economics with a high concentration of Austrian economists.

Going by the SSRN Top 8000 economic author list, the highest ranked according to the Author-Level Eigenfactor Score is Peter Boettke (Rank 675).

Going by RePEC's ranking, there appears Boettke (Top 9%), Leeson (Top 7%), Foss (Top 6%), Sobel (Top 7%), Langlois (Top 9%), Klein (Top 8%), and White (764).

There are 97 Austrian economists in the world, in my estimation. Out of them, 7 ( 7.2% of Austrians) are among the Top 10% of Authors in RePEc. The real percentage will be lower, as there has to be economists that I have not counted. If we assume a number 1.3 times larger, there are 126 Austrians, and 5.6% among the Top 10%. So if the Austrians were a randomly selected bunch of economists out of the pool of all economists, we would expect 10% to be in the top 10%. There is thus a gap of 3-4%. There are various explanations for the gap, among them: the topics that Austrians work on, that are not seen as much relevant in the profession (like entrepreneurship, methodology, capital theory, monetary theory, polycentric orders, and history of economic thought),  the historical disconnect between many Austrians and the rest of the profession, and in many cases, the quality of the work itself.

There is, however, one element of Austrian theory that is among the topics of interest in modern economics: the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Wrongly thought as debunked by Friedman some decades ago, some non-Austrians who rank high among economists are now showing some interest in the theory. Among them, Guillermo Calvo, Michele Boldrin, and Claudio Borio. (For more details see Hayek and Contemporary Macroeconomics by Lawrence H. White).

This is promising, as there is no generally accepted business cycle theory to explain boom-bust type recessions.

To them we would have to add Nobelist Vernon L. Smith, who could even be considered an Austrian directly in some ways.

Who are the most relevant? In my personal opinion, Boettke, Stringham, Skarbek, Leeson, Garrison, White, Foss and Klein.

Now, the list:

Peter Boettke

University Professor of Economics, George Mason University

Liya Palagashvili

Assistant Professor of Economics, Purchase College, SUNY

Vlad Tarko

Assistant Professor of Economics, Dickinson College

Solomon Stein

Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University

Alexander William Salter

Assistant Professor of Economics, Rawls College of Business

Shruti Rajagopalan

Assistant Professor in Economics, Purchse College, SUNY

Nicholas A. Snow

Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics, Kenyon College

Alexander Fink

Assistant Professor, University of Leipzig, Institut fur Wirtschaftspolitik

Daniel J. Smith

Assistant Professor of Economics, Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy, Troy University

Adam C. Smith

Assistant Professor of Economics, Jonhson and Wales University

Leo Krasnozhon

Assistant Professor of Economics, Loyola University New Orleans

David Skarbek

Lecturer in Political Economy, King's College London

Tyler Watts

Assistant Professor of Economics, Ball State University

Josh Hill

Assistant Professor, Montanta State University Billings

Jennifer Dirmeyer

Visiting Assistant Professor, Ferris State University

Emily Schaeffer Skarbek

Lecturer in Political Economy, King's College London

Daniel J. D'Amico

Assistant Professor of Economics, Loyola University New Orleans

Anthony J. Evans

Associate Professor of Economics and Course Director, MEB London, European School of Management

Stephen Miller

Associate Professor of Economics, Western Carolina University

Christopher Coyne

F.A. Harper Professor of Economics, George Mason University

Peter Leeson

BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism, George Mason University

Christine Polek

Economics Instructor, University of Massachusettes at Dartmouth

Scott Beaulier

Adams-Bibby Chair of Free Enterprise and Associate Professor of Economics, Troy University

Virgil Storr

Senior Research Fellow & Director of Graduate Student Programs, Mercatus Center at George Mason University

Benjamin Powell

Director, Free Market Institute and Professor of Economics, Texas Tech University

Edward Stringham

Associate Professor and Faculty Affiliate for Free Market Institute, Texas Tech University

Sahar Akhtar

Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Virginia

Gail M. Heffernan

Economics Instructor, Florida Institute of Technology

Juan Ramón Rallo

Centro de Estudios OMMA

Philip Bagus

Professor, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Jesús Huerta de Soto

Professor, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

Andreas Hoffman

Assistant Professor, Institute for Economic Policy, Leipzig University

Robert Mulligan

Professor of Economics, Western Carolina University

Roger Garrison

Professor of Economics, Auburn University

Robert P. Murphy

Economist, Institute for Energy Research

Steven Horwitz

Charles A. Dana Professor, St. Lawrence University

David Prichitko

Professor, Northern Michigan University

Lawrence H. White

Professor, George Mason University

Walter E. Block

Harold E. Wirrth Eminent Scholar Endowed Chair in Economics, Loyola University

Thomas DiLorenzo

Professor, Loyola University

Israel Kirzner

Professor Emeritus of Economics, New York University

Mario Rizzo

Associate Professor of Economics, New York University

Nicolai Foss

Professor of Strategy and Organization, Copenhagen Business School

Adam Martin

Assistant Professor, Texas Tech University

George Selgin

Professor of Economics, Terry School of Business, University of Georgia

Mark Thornton

Senior Fellow, Ludwig von Mises Institute

Diama W. Thomas

Associate Professor of Economics, Heider College of Business at Creighton University

Richard Wagner

Harris Professor of Economics, George Mason University

Randall Holcombe

DeVoe Moore Professor of Economics, Florida State University

Robert Higgs

Senior Fellow in Political Economy at the Independent Institute and the Ludwig von Mises Institute

Karen Vaughn

Professor of Economics, George Mason University

Bruce Caldwell

Director, Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University

Peter G. Klein

Professor of Entrepreneurship at Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business

Roger Koppl

Professor of Finance, Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University

Antal Fekete

Professor Emeritus, Memorial University of Newfoundland

Donald J. Boudreaux

Professor of Economics, George Mason University

Audrey D. Kline

Associate Professor of Economics, University of Louisville

Matt McCaffrey

Assistant Professor of enterprise, University of Manchester

Rahim Taghizadegan

Director, Academic Research Institute Scholarium

Arkadiusz Sieroń

PhD Candidate, University of Wroclaw

Mateusz Machaj

Researcher at Institute of Economic and Social Sciences, Wroclaw Univesity

Carmen Elena Dorobat

Assistant Professor in Economics, University of Angers

David Howden

Professor of Economics, St. Luis University Madrid Campus

Lauren E. Grube

Assistant Professor of Economics, Beloit College

Stefanie Haeffele-Balch

PhD candidate, George Mason University

James Caton

PhD candidate, George Mason University

Paola Suarez

PhD candidate, George Mason University

Vipin Veetil

PhD candidate, George Mason Unversity

Ionut Sternap

PhD candidate, George Mason University

Paul Dragos Aligica

Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University

** Jayme Lemke**

Senior Research Fellow, Mercatus Center, George Mason University

Abigail R. Hall

Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Tampa

William J. Luther

Assistant Professor of Economicas at Kenyon College

Peter Lewin

Clinical Professor of Managerial Economics, Naveen Jindal School of Management

Joseph T. Salerno

Professor of Economics, Pace University

Richard Ebeling

BB&T Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel

Laurent Dobuzinskis

Associate Professor, Simon Fraser University

Jeffery S. McMullen

Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, Indiana University

J. Barkley Rosser

Professor of Economics, James Madison University

Nicolas Cachanosky

Assistant Professor of Economics, Metropolitan State University of Denver

Joshua R. Hendrickson

Assistant Professor, University of Mississippi

Patrick Newman

PhD candidate, George Mason University

Pablo Paniagua

PhD candidate, King's College London

Jason Lermyte

Lecturer in Finance, Groupe INSEEC

Robert B. Lester

Assistant Professor of Economics, Colby College

Russell S. Sobel

Professor of Economics & Entrepreneurship, School of Business The Citadel

Daniel B. Klein

Professor of Economics, George Mason University

Richard N. Langlois

Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut

Guido Hülsmann

Professor, Université d'Angers

Hendrik Hagedorn

Professor of Economics, BiTS

EDIT

Adrián Ravier

Professor of Economics, Universidad Francisco Marroquín

Gabriel Zanotti

Professor of Epistemology, Universidad Austral

Ubiratan Iório

Professor of Economics, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Fabio Barbieri

Researcher at Department of Economics, FEARP-USP

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Professor Emeritus,  College of Business at the University of Nevada

Nick Curott

Assistant Professor, Ball State University

Scott Burns

PhD Student, George Mason University

Comments from WordPress

  • Jim Rose Jim Rose 2016-03-13T03:31:14Z

    Gone are the days when the entire Austrian school of economics didn't need to book ahead to get a table at a restaurant.

  • Zachary Woodman Zachary Woodman 2016-03-17T06:24:45Z

    I don't know if they count due to lacking publications, but what about people at small right-leaning liberal arts colleges like Hillsdale or Grove City? Most of them are Austrians

  • Artir Artir 2016-03-17T13:49:24Z

    Wasn't aware of that fact. Interesting.

    I had, however, to set a cutoff point somewhere, and I thought that if we want to have an idea of the size of the 'Austrian scholar community', the best way was to see who is active in journals. There are some people that are quite Austrian friendly (Vernon Smith, Lawrence H. White, McCloskey), that I haven't included because I wanted to err on the side of caution when declaring someone an Austrian or not.

    I also guessed that there are 30% more Austrians than the ones of my list, just in case I haven't counted some. Ideally, someone else would do something similar to this, but with more detail, so we can have a better idea of the contemporary Austrian community, work directions, and so on, like http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1875966

  • Zachary Woodman Zachary Woodman 2016-03-17T07:19:58Z

    Also, Deirdre McCloskey admits to a deep appreciation of and influence by Austrian Economics.