Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Tieben, Bert
• Besomi, Daniele
• Baranzini, Roberto

Titel

The nature of monetary disturbances in Austrian and Swedish business cycle theories

Ist Teil von

• Metaphors in the History of Economic Thought, 2023, p.187-209

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2023

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This chapter investigates the role of metaphors in the business cycle theories of the Austrian school and the Stockholm school of economics. The theories of these schools operated within the same theoretical framework based on Wicksell's definition of monetary equilibrium. Wicksell adopted specific metaphors, such as elasticity, to indicate the nature of this equilibrium and show that the role of money fundamentally affected the relationship between saving and investing. We examine whether such metaphors were mere literary expressions or truly theory-constituent metaphors, which influenced the subsequent development of business cycle theory. The chapter also argues that the choice of metaphors indicates the differences between the business cycle theories of both schools. The followers of Wicksell adopted mechanistic metaphors such as static and dynamic equilibrium, which they believed represented aspects of economic reality. For Austrian economists did was not the case. Their metaphors were developed as imaginary constructions with deliberately unrealistic features. The goal was to highlight the dynamic causes that, in reality, formed the core of the business cycle.