ABSTRACT
Assessing the contribution of modern Austrian economics to the field of comparative economic systems is a complex task, owing to the immense influence of the socialist calculation debate on the subsequent development of Austrian thought. In some sense, Austrian economics as a mode of analysis is always concerned with the questions that motivate the subdiscipline of comparative economic systems. The Austrian understanding of the microeconomic market process derives from a broader understanding of the market’s advantages versus other forms of social and economic coordination. Contributions to the more specific area of comparative economic systems have generally been extensions and applications of this broad argument to (1) new attempts to defend nonmarket forms of economic coordination; (2) historical episodes of socialist construction; and (3) ongoing issues of privatization, de-monopolization, and economic reform in the former Soviet-style economies. In this survey I will briefly review the Austrian contribution to the socialist calculation debate and then proceed to give a critical overview of the contributions to the comparative economic systems literature by the postrevival (i.e., post-1974) generation of Austrian economists.
