Austrian school of economics

Austrian school of economics, body of economic theory developed in the late 19th century by Austrian economists who, in determining the value of a product, emphasized the importance of its utility to the consumer. Carl Menger published the new theory of value in 1871, the same year in which English economist William Stanley Jevons independently published a similar theory.

Menger believed that value is completely subjective: a product’s value is found in its ability to satisfy human wants. Moreover, the actual value depends on the product’s utility in its least important use (see marginal utility). If the product exists in abundance, it will be used in less-important ways. As the product becomes more scarce, however, the less-important uses are abandoned, and greater utility will be derived from the new least-important use. (This idea relates to one of the most important laws in economics, the law of demand, which says that when the price of something rises, people will demand less of it.)

This theory of value also supplies an answer to the so-called “diamond-water paradox,” which economist Adam Smith pondered but was unable to solve. Smith noted that, even though life cannot exist without water and can easily exist without diamonds, diamonds are, pound for pound, vastly more valuable than water. The marginal-utility theory of value resolves the paradox. Water in total is much more valuable than diamonds in total because the first few units of water are necessary for life itself. But, because water is plentiful and diamonds are scarce, the marginal value of a pound of diamonds exceeds the marginal value of a pound of water. The idea that value derives from utility contradicted Karl Marx’s labour theory of value, which held that an item’s value derives from the labour used to produce it and not from its ability to satisfy human wants.

The theory of marginal utility was applied to production as well as to consumption. Friedrich von Wieser based the value of productive resources on their contribution to the final product, recognizing that changes in the amount used of one productive factor would alter the productivity of other factors. He also introduced the concept of opportunity cost: Wieser showed that the cost of a factor of production can be determined by its utility in some alternative use—i.e., an opportunity forgone. The concept of “opportunity cost,” as identified by Wieser, is still widely used in modern economic analysis.

Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk developed marginal-utility analysis into a theory of price. Böhm-Bawerk is best known, however, for his work on capital and interest, in which he emphasized the role of time in determining the value of goods. He viewed interest as the charge for the use of capital—a compensation to the owner for abstaining from present consumption. The rate of interest was determined by the size of the labour force, the amount of a community’s capital, and the possibility of increasing productivity through methods of production.

The two leading Austrian economists of the 20th century were Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich A. Hayek. Mises (in the 1920s) and Hayek (in the 1940s) both showed that a complex economy cannot be rationally planned because true market prices are absent. As a result, the information critical for centralized planning cannot be obtained.