Austrian Concept Research Articles

Day care clinics central and/or distributed. Astandard element of child and adolescent psychiatric care

Day-care clinics as specialized care units of child and adolescent psychiatric care in Austria represent an important component for person-orientated treatment offers. In addition to numerous advantages, they also put higher demands on the young patients and their relatives. The Austrian structure for day-care settings is recorded in the Austrian structure plan for health. Therefore, particular attention is paid to structural quality criteria, which are based on the Austrian concept of performance-oriented hospital financing. Ahigh demand and need for readiness for transdisciplinary, multimodal treatment concepts and forms is discussed. It becomes ovious that there is aneed for large spatial resource requirements. The establishment of several day clinic groups at one location and spatial requirements cannot be found in the concept of performance-oriented hospital financing. To ensure and evaluate the quality of treatment, recommendations are made on apatient-related and team- or organization-related level. The workgroup "day-care-clinic" of the Austrian Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy recommends atreatment structure characterized by transdisciplinarity and participation. Further, it regionalized and local access and the integration of the day clinic into the community is necessary. Networking with other care structures and using social-psychiatric networks is essential. Regional characteristics should be taken into account and specialized, topic-specific day clinic groups should be increasingly included in further planning and concepts.

Information, Uncertainty & Espionage

Intelligence scholars are drawing on behavioural decision theory to improve decision-making under risk and uncertainty in intelligence and counterintelligence. Such an undertaking is essentially lacking without the Austrian school’s concepts of knowledge, discovery, (entrepreneurial) judgement, ignorance, rational calculation and, more generally, its analysis of human action in the face of true uncertainty. Decision theory, both orthodox and behavioural, depicts decision rather narrowly as a prioritisation task undertaken within a delineated problem space where the probabilities “sum to one”. From such a perspective, certain perennial challenges in intelligence and counterintelligence appear resolvable when in fact they are not, at least not when approached from the usual direction. We explain how Austrian concepts can complement efforts to improve intelligence decision-making. We conclude that the future strategic value of intelligence analysis is located beyond information acquisition, however fast and however vast. Intelligence agencies have no price signals to help them determine how much intelligence to produce. And governments have no price signals to moderate their appetites for the intelligence product. Ultimately, those agencies that recognise the implications of intelligence agencies as non-price institutions and adapt their decision-making processes may find that they have the upper hand over their rivals.

Dynamic efficiency and economic complexity

AbstractThis article deals with the link between complexity economics and the Austrian concept of dynamic efficiency. The conventional notion of efficiency used in economic science, regarded as static in this article, is rejected for being incompatible with complexity economics in epistemic terms. The concept of dynamic efficiency is thus presented as an alternative definition of efficiency, given its epistemic and theoretical similarities with complexity economics; more concretely, with Santa Fe complexity. Consequently, a direct, causal relationship between economic complexity and dynamic efficiency is highlighted. This relationship is confirmed in light of recent applications of both dynamic efficiency theory and complexity economics to the study of economic development. Finally, it is pointed out that economic complexity and dynamic efficiency can be combined to improve our understanding of the development process.

A Review of the Disinheritance Bill from the Legislative Perspective

Recently, the Korean government has proposed a bill for the disinheritance to the Korean Assembly, which provides that the testator can request the disinheritance of the presumptive heir to the family court in the case of the material breach of his/her duty of support or in the case of serious crime against the testator, his/her spouse or lineal relatives. Although it was inspired by the disqualification of legal reserve of inheritance system in the German Civil law, there are two important differences. First, the testator can claim for the disinheritance of the presumptive heir while he/she is still alive; secondly, his/her heirs can claim it after the testator’s death. It looks similar to the disherison system in the Japanese Civil law, but it is the combination of the German system and the disqualification of inheritance by trial system in Franch Civil law in order to implement the Austrian concept, which allows the heir can carry out the intent of the testator on his behalf if the testator fails to die before he makes a will for the disinheritance of the presumptive heir. This paper is written to explain the structure and the details of the bill and to prompt the discussion for the introduction of a best disinheritance system suitable for the unique situation of Korea.

Austrian Economics and Organizational Entrepreneurship: A Typology

This article develops a typology for making sense of the numerous strands of Austrian (and Austrian-related) economics and demonstrates how this typology can guide organizational entrepreneurship scholars wishing to ground their research in Austrian thought. In the process, not only are existing insights from the history of Austrian economic thought rediscovered, but clearer light is also shed on important perspectives from that tradition that have received less attention in entrepreneurship research. Based on the Austrian concept of entrepreneurial production and its relationship with the core concepts of knowledge and change, the typology yields four perspectives—equilibration, punctuated equilibrium, disequilibration, and punctuated disequilibrium. These perspectives’ different paradigms as used in organizational research are explored, along with their ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. The typology is illustrated with selected empirical examples from organizational research to spotlight the types of questions that contemporary scholars may appropriately ask and answer from each perspective.

Demonstrated Preferences as the Middle Ground Between Revealed Preferences and Modern Behaviorism

Behavioral economics rejects the Samuelsonian concept of revealed preferences, which, in turn, is a cornerstone for the development of modern neoclassical micro theory. This paper aims at criticizing the behavioral charge against revealed preferences, arguing that, while accepting the fact that neoclassical micro theory is in part not plausible, the behavioral critique is misleading and thus does not solve the problem of neoclassical microeconomics stemmed from its essence. This paper also develops a case for the Austrian concept of demonstrated preference as a middle ground between neoclassical micro theory and behavioral economics.

Strategic marketing & Austrian economics: The foundations of resource-advantage theory

Contrary to popular belief, marketing was not born under management, but under economics. Issues such as markets and exchanges are at the core of both disciplines even though they are studied under different lenses. The common ground makes it possible to use one approach to analyze the other. That is the goal of this paper: to show that “Austrian economics” is helpful in understanding the key phenomena of strategic marketing. The aim is to show how business schools can adopt an Austrian approach in their economics classes to facilitate students’ understanding of market dynamics. This qualitative and exploratory study analyzes a general theory of competition, the Resource-Advantage Theory, using the Austrian concepts — action, time, and knowledge — to better understand business competition and what leads companies to achieve and maintain competitive advantages. By comparing these two theoretical frameworks, the paper analyzes, in a detailed manner, each one of the R-A Theory’s premises using ideas of the Austrian School and concludes that these ideas are helpful not only for understanding the Resource-Advantage Theory, but also Strategic Marketing as a whole and that, consequently, the Austrian approach should be taught at business schools economics courses.

Ludwig Lachmann as a Theorist of Entrepreneurship

Abstract One of the distinctive features of the Austrian School of Economics has been its emphasis on the entrepreneur as central to the market process. One 20th century Austrian whose work is normally not thought of as making a major contribution to the Austrian theory of entrepreneurship is Ludwig Lachmann. However, a careful reading of his 1956 book Capital and its Structure can tease out a theory of the function of the entrepreneur that is distinctly different from that of Israel Kirzner, yet still clearly situated in an Austrian conception of the market process. In this contribution, I want to emphasize two points that have been raised by previous work on Lachmann, but not explored in any detail. The first is that Lachmann’s conception of entrepreneurship is deeply bound up with the need to engage in monetary calculation thanks to the heterogeneity of capital and uncertainty of the future. For Lachmann, the key function of the entrepreneur is to “specify” the uses of capital goods. Such specification requires the use of money prices and what Mises called monetary calculation. The second contribution is to offer more detail on the way in which entrepreneurs both creatively specify and re-specify the uses of their capital goods in response to profit and loss signals. The constant shuffling and reshuffling of capital goods, of which coming up with new products or new twists to old ones are a part, is the essence of Lachmann’s implicit vision of entrepreneurship. For Lachmann, entrepreneurship is bound up with resource ownership and deployment through the creation and revision of plans in ways that are much more active than Kirzner’s conception of the entrepreneur.

The Visegrad Cooperation in the Context of Other Central European Cooperation Formats

Abstract This study considers the plethora of contemporary institutional frameworks for Central European cooperation. While the Visegrad Group has been the most visible and stable format for Central European cooperation in recent history, it has been challenged by a number of alternative or complementary projects. These include the Austrian concept of Strategic/Regional Partnership, the Austrian-Czech-Slovak project Austerlitz-Formate/Nord‑Trilaterale, the Polish-Croatian Three Seas Initiative and the European Union’s macro‑regional Strategy for the Danube Region (EUSDR). I focus on the development and prospects of each of these projects as well the rivalries among them and their intersections ot interference with one another. This survey then turns to the future Central European constellations suggested by the very different cooperation trajectories within the region. My thesis is that the region’s identity has been challenged by offers to merge with Europe’s West. Central European cooperation must find new challenges and themes if it is to survive.

Polanyi vs Hayek?

ABSTRACT Karl Polanyi and Friedrich Hayek are often portrayed as implacable intellectual opponents but their respective historical trajectories suggest some telling similarities. Here we describe some key similarities in their approach to markets, as a prelude to evaluating the political consequences of relying upon their Austrian conceptions of nature-based and constructivist framing of markets. Perhaps it is time to transcend their dichotomy.

Quality Indicators of Primary Health Care Facilities in Austria

The strengthening of primary health care is one major goal of the current national health reform in Austria. In this context, a new interdisciplinary concept was developed in 2014 that defines structures and requirements for future primary health care facilities. The aim of this project was the development of quality indicators for the evaluation of the scheduled primary health care facilities in Austria, which are in accordance with the new Austrian concept. We used the RAND/NPCRDC method for the development and selection of the quality indicators. We conducted systematic literature searches for existing measures in international databases for quality indicators as well as in bibliographic databases. All retrieved measures were evaluated and rated by an expert panel in a 2-step process regarding relevance and feasibility. Overall, the literature searches yielded 281 potentially relevant quality indicators, which were summarized to 65 different quality measures for primary health care. Out of these, the panel rated and accepted 30 measures as relevant and feasible for use in Austria. Five of these indicators were structure measures, 14 were process measures and the remaining 11 were outcome measures. Based on the Austrian primary health care concept, the final set of quality indicators was grouped in the 5 following domains: Access to primary health care (5), quality of care (15), continuity of care (5), coordination of care (4), and safety (1). This set of quality measures largely covers the four defined functions of primary health care. It enables standardized evaluation of primary health care facilities in Austria regarding the implementation of the Austrian primary health care concept as well as improvement in healthcare of the population.

Reincorporating Friedrich von Wieser and the Concept of Power into the Austrian Research Program

This paper constitutes the start of a project dedicated to Austrian economist and economic sociologist Friedrich von Wieser (1851-1926). Its central claim is that especially in recent decades, Wieser has become a disproportionately underresearched scholar, and the paper provides a set of arguments why this is unjustified. Wieser’s life and work are portrayed along five dimensions: the innovative social scientist (section 2); the erector of the Austrian School in its formative decades (section 3); the synthesizer of socio-economic ideas (section 4); the teacher to whom scientific credit has been granted undeservedly seldom (section 5); finally, the connector to other contemporaneous paradigms of economics and economic sociology, especially the ones of Max Weber and Vilfredo Pareto (section 6). The paper sets up a meta-presentation of a set of questions that appear crucial at this stage of the project. In subsequent sub-projects, the five above dimensions will be expanded into separate but interdependent expositions. As an example for the initiation of such a sub-project, Wieser’s concept of power – a key topos also for the other members of the Viennese “triumvirate” – is revisited (section 7). Since later generations of the Austrian School have been reluctant to use this concept in their systems, this and later inquiries will explore how central Austrian concepts like spontaneous order” or “human action” may need a reformulation if power relations are explicitly built into the analysis. While the project is primarily conducted as a history of economics endeavor, revisiting Wieser’s legacy in general and the significance of power in particular also aims at generating impulses for the further development of the research program of Austrian economics, as well as at a better understanding of the increasing politico-economic fragility and instability of today’s Western democracies, phenomena related to power and leadership.

The institutional structure of production revisited

Abstract:This paper revisits Coase's original description of the Institutional Structure of Production, and disentangles its two constitutive elements: (i) the costs of organizing an activity internally and (ii) the costs deriving from the transaction of the activity on the market. In doing so, I show transaction costs (TC) to be always necessary and sufficient to explain institutions, but only in the Slutsky–Hicks and Samuelson ordinal framework where expenditure functions replace utility functions and actors merely transact services and never control, nor own goods. Yet, if actors can purchase (and therefore control) resources, utility in use cannot be univocally deduced from purchasing behaviours; here ordinal exchange theory must be replaced by Austrian subjective cardinal value theory, where value in use and value in exchange do not coincide. To explain the allocation of activities among firms in this case, actors’ subjective opportunity costs are thus always necessary (and possibly sufficient), while TC are never sufficient. This distinction has fundamental implications for at least two main developments of Coase's original insights: the relationship among competition, socialist planning and the nature of the firm, and the reinterpretation of the Austrian concept of asset specificity in contemporary institutional and organizational economics (OE).

Germany’s Statutory Treatment of Special Payments in Transnational Cases

In the field of business taxation, the German and Austrian concepts of co-entrepreneurship (Mitunternehmerschaft) take special positions. Following these concepts, partnership profits are attributed to partner shares and, accordingly, the partners are taxed independently under the transparency or pass-through principle (Transparenzprinzip) based on their respective shares and the special payments they receive from the partnership. Special payments (Sondervergütungen), for instance, interest on a loan granted to the partnership by a partner, are treated as income from commercial business according to domestic law. Therefore, section 50d, paragraph 10, of the Income Tax Act (Einkommensteuergesetz [EStG]) determines that the special payments are treated as a business profit for treaty purposes. As a result, Germany waives the right to tax the partner as a German permanent establishment (PE). In transnational arrangements, the unique German system often results in conflicts of qualification. On this account, our paper points out the consequences resulting from the treatment of special payments. Based on case studies with inbound and outbound investments, we outline the current status of the German treatment of special payments in transnational dealings and summarize future prospects.

Wieviel Sicherheit braucht der Friede? Zivile und militärische Näherungen zur österreichischen Sicherheitsstrategie

<i>Wieviel Sicherheit braucht der Friede? Zivile und militärische Näherungen zur österreichischen Sicherheitsstrategie</i>

Hayek's Transformation and His Dissertation

This article describes the change of Hayek’s economic concepts in the period from his dissertation on political science in 1923 to ‘Economics and Knowledge’ in 1937. Hayek’s dissertation was written under the influence of Wieser and Spann, professors at Vienna University. His dissertation in fact reconsiders problems addressed by Spann, whose comprehensive influence is apparent on the development of Hayek’s position. Although influence of Spann had disappeared after meeting to Mises, this paper points out that there is the Austrian concept of “institutionalism” between Hayek and Spann. Although this popular theme has already been discussed by several researchers, this paper aims to clarify the background to his transformation and his position in economics from the 1920s to the 1930s. The intellectual background of Hayek is usually discussed in the context of his liberalism, but consideration of the origin of his social science helps to explain why his later methodology and though was not simple individualism and included a holistic aspect.

Contrasting Concepts of Capital: Yet Another Look at the Hayek-Keynes Debate

Although much of the debate between Hayek and Keynes is today portrayed in terms of policy differences, those are not the most fundamental divisions between their conceptions of economics. I argue that their economics diverges most significantly in how they understand the role of capital in a market economy, and how capital relates to issues of savings and investment. Specifically, Hayek’s Austrian conception of capital provides a very different, and very much disaggregated, vision of the market process that can help identify the flaws in Keynesian theory and policy. When capital is seen as reflective of human plans and where it is understood to have multiple but not an infinite number of uses, the economist is forced to consider the microeconomic foundations of macroeconomic phenomena in a way that validates Hayek’s complaint that Keynes’s aggregates conceal the fundamental mechanisms of change.

Jesus Huerta de Soto, Book review of The Austrian school: Market order and entrepreneurial creativity

I imagine that Jesus Huerta de Soto’s new book The Austrian School: Market Order and Entrepreneurial Creativity must have been extremely difficult to write. He explains his goal for the text as: “we shall explain the fundamental principles of the dynamic, Austrian concept of the market, and we will point out the main differences between the Austrian perspective and the neoclassical paradigm” (p. ix). In short, de Soto tries to respond to the popular but pesky question, “what is so special about Austrian economics?” I say that this book must have been difficult to write not because this question is difficult to answer. On the contrary, de Soto does an excellent job surveying the many distinctive features of Austrian economics. Communicating the uniqueness of Austrianism comes easy to de Soto, for he has clearly researched widely in the tradition and mastered its positions. Instead, I imagine that this book was a great challenge to put together because there are so many different ways that the material could be structurally organized and presented. The creative challenge of this book was not a matter of conducting original research or formalizing original theoretical insights. Instead, it was likely a process of synthesizing a broad swath of expertise (for which the reader is lucky to have an author like de Soto) into a clear and compact presentation. When answering, “what exactly is unique about Austrian economics?” one could concentrate on the uniquely aprioristic and methodological foundations of the tradition: deductive reasoning, the analytical compatibility between means and ends, meaningful distinctions through Aristotelian essentialism, and the use of hypothetical constructs and counterfactuals. Or one could emphasize the unique theoretical contributions of Austrian economics: the knowledge and calculative roles of market prices, the impossibility of socialism, Rev Austrian Econ DOI 10.1007/s11138-009-0101-9

From That's Entertainment! to That's Entertainment? globalization and the consumption of the Hollywood musical in Germany and Austria

The media world today is dominated by multinational media operations, most of them with headquarters in the United States of America. How does the fact that most decisions regarding the advertising and preparation of products for the international market are made in the United States and not in the respective target countries influence the overseas reception of the film musical one of the most American of movie genres? The essay approaches this question by looking at the way Hollywood musicals have been and still are offered for consumption in the German-speaking film market, which originally had almost no acquaintance with the aesthetics and stars of the dream factory's All Talking! All Singing! All Dancing! movies. Through examples taken from several decades of dubbing, subtitling and cutting film musicals, the article analyses how the attempts of US film distributors to raise their profile and increase their market share have drastically changed the meaning of certain film musicals and affected the reception by both the general public and film experts of the genre and some of its stars, such as Judy Garland and Doris Day. Despite the opportunity to present original as well as uncut or extended versions the advent of the DVD has done nothing to change German and Austrian (mis)conceptions of the Hollywood musical as US film companies still tend to treat foreign audiences as a mere extension of the home market.

Austrian Economics and the Study of Entrepreneurship: Concepts and Contributions

Entrepreneurship researcher’s growing interest in Austrian economics has not been matched by systematic efforts to tease out and incorporate this tradition's basic ideas. To remedy this situation, this paper introduces the Austrian market-process tradition and also compares it to the equilibrium-focused neoclassical tradition. Taking this contrast as point of departure, we reexamine three central questions in the field of entrepreneurship studies: Who is an entrepreneur?, What is an opportunity?, and What is the role of planning? Based on the answers to these specific questions, the paper concludes with a broader discussion of how Austrian concepts can contribute to the theoretical and methodological development of entrepreneurship studies writ large.