Journal Articles

MACROECONOMICS, MONETARY THEORY AND ECONOMIC POLICY

Abstract: The series of banking failures in Buenos Aires Province in the 1800s was due not to a shortage of precious metals but to inefficient regulation, burdensome Treasury deficits and monopoly power. This is yet another historical example of how wars result in the degradation of monetary and banking institutions.
Download Paper: "Monetary disorder in Buenos Aires (1822-1881)"
Summer 2022. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: TIR, Volume 27, Number 1, pp. 23-35.
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Abstract: Throughout his life, Friedrich Hayek worked towards prescribing a monetary policy under which the world economy would again enjoy the stability it had known under the classical international gold standard system. This paper presents three banking and monetary systems that were pivotal in the history of banking and closely scrutinized by Hayek. The paper outlines those systems, summarizes Hayek’s comments on each and then discusses the recent literature on the subject in the light of Hayek’s influence.
Download Paper: "Friedrich Hayek On Monetary and Banking Systems Reforms"
2020. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: JNF, Volume 1, Number 2, pp. 1-20.​
Frydman and Goldberg’s book lays out important methodological contributions in regard to questioning the hypothesis of rational expectations, constructed on the basis of the writings of Knight, Keynes and Hayek in its opening section. But in the second part, it does not propose a convincing model that would help avoid the formation of new financial bubbles. While accepting to some extent that the government entity has no greater knowledge than economic agents, it ignores the perverse public-sector incentives that James M. Buchanan and the School of Public Choice have explored in recent decades. Furthermore, although repeated reference to Hayek is encouraging, the authors seem to have misunderstood the implications of his most important insight, namely the knowledge problem as it affects public sector decision making. Paradoxically, this oversight leads Frydman and Goldberg themselves to adopt a pretension of knowledge stance despite explicitly criticising traditional models for this very same error.
Download Paper: "Book Review: Beyond Mechanical Markets – Asset Price Swings, Risk and the Role of the State, by Roman Frydman and Michael D. Goldberg, Princeton, Nj, Princeton University Press, 2011, 304"
2020. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: JNF, Volume 1, Number 3, pp. 1-12.​
Abstract: While Roger Garrison’s time structure of production model has been mostly used to theoretically and empirically analyze business cycles, other potential venues have not been explored. The effects of fiscal policy is one of these applications. We show how Garrison’s model can be used to analyze the effects of fiscal policy in the presence of idle resources. This analysis yields two important results. Particularly, our application of Garrison’s model shows that even if, starting with idle resources, fiscal policy manages to reach potential output, the result is imbalances in resource allocation in the economy’s structure of production.
​Download Paper: "Fiscal Policy and Crowiding Out Effects in Capital Based Macroeconomics with Idle Resources"
Winter 2015. By Nicolás Cachanosky and Adrian Ravier. Filed Under: JPE, Volume 30, Number 4, pp. 81-95.
Abstract: : Considerable research has been conducted on central bank monetary policies. Particular attention has been focused on policies that have the potential to ensure “sound money,” the symptoms of which are full employment and economic stability. Debate has centered on employing rule-based strategies to improve the monetary policies of the Federal Reserve Bank (“the Fed”). This article reviews the Fed’s performance with particular emphasis on its contribution to the 2008 crisis and then suggests an alternative policy which, had it been in place would have dampened the most recent boom and bust. This alternative is the application of a monetary rule that follows Wicksell’s monetary equilibrium doctrine. Although the proposed rule would not eliminate short-term price fluctuations, it should create consistent, inflation-free economic stability, a condition for sustained growth which the U.S. has not seen since the Fed’s inception.
​Download Paper: "The Natural Rate of Interest Rule"
Winter 2014. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: QJAE, Volume 17, Number 4, pp. 417-441.
Abstract: ​Argentina’s inflation problem has been so chronic and debilitating that it can be solved only by adopting a reliable alternative to central banking and discretionary monetary policy. The best way forward might begin with the government giving people and businesses the freedom to rely on any national or private currencies they choose.
Download Paper: "A Proposal of Monetary Reform for Argentina: Dollarization and Free Banking"
Winter 2015. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: The Independent Review. A Journal of Political Economy, Volume 19, Number 4, pp. 397-426.
Abstract: My objective is to try to clarify what happened in Argentina’s recent economic history, in order to shed light on a current and controversial topic in the field of economic policy.
Download Paper: "The Current 'Unsustainable  Boom' in the Argentine Economy"
Fall 2013. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: Procesos de Mercado, Vol. X, Num. 2, pp. 165-186.
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Abstract: Don Bellante and Roger W. Garrison (1988) compared two alternative explanations of monetary dynamics: those based on a vertical long-run Phillips curve and those derived from analysis of Hayekian triangles. The authors concluded that the only factor differentiating the two models is the “process” whereby the initial cause is converted into the final “neutral” effect. This article refutes that conclusion. To do so, it suffices to demonstrate that the long-term effect of monetary policy is never neutral.  While it is true that after the boom and bust the economy returns to the natural rate of unemployment, the crucial point is that the “natural rate” at the end of the cycle is quite different from the one evident at the start. This requires an “Austrian” Phillips curve with a positive slope.
​Download Paper: "Dynamic Monetary Theory and the Phillips Curve with a Positive Slope"
Summer 2013. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: QJAE, Vol. 16, Num. 2, pp. 165-186.
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     The Subprime Crisis, The Quaterly Journal of Austrian Economics (QJAE), Vol. 15, Num. 1, Spring 2012, pp. 45-74.
     (with Peter Lewin)
  •       Abstract: This article offers an analysis of the causes of the subprime crisis, explaining that it is not an isolated 
  •      incident and that we should concentrate our attention on the Fed’s monetary policy and pressures on the banking
  •      system received from the U.S. government for flexible lending. It also critically examines the Fed’s exit strategy and
  •      fiscal policies that the government is taking to create jobs and stimulate the economy. We conclude that it should
  •      be no surprise if the U.S. economy should fall into a new cycle in the coming years, even though economics does
  •      not provides the tools to predict the precise timing of it.
     Download Paper: "The Subprime Crisis"
                                                 Spring 2012. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: QJAE, Vol. 15, Num. 1, pp. 45-74.
Abstract: The objective of this article is to present an extension of Garrison's capital-based macroeconomics" model. Garrison's objective was ― starting from a full employment equilibrium situation ― to build a model that provides insight into the causes of crisis and depression. We offer ― starting from an unemployment situation ― an explanation of why expansionary monetary policies fail in the longer term to solve the unemployment problems association with recessions.  This extension provides a fresh perspective on the debates between Hayek and Keynes in the 1930's and over "quantitative easing" today.
Download Paper: "Rethinking Capital Based Macroeconomics"
​Fall 2011. By Adrián Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: QJAE, Vol. 14, Num. 3, pp. 347-375.
​ Abstract: This article answers Dr. Humphrey contention on the similarities between monetarist and Austrian approaches to the neutrality of money Monetarists at most only concentrate on short term non neutrality while Austrians base their analysis in short, medium and long term non neutrality. For the more, monetarists lack a true theory of capital that could let then understand that even with flexible markets money would not be neutral in the short term.
Download Paper: "The principle of the non-neutrality of money. A response to Dr. Humphrey"
​Fall, 2011. By Adrian Osvaldo Ravier. Filed Under: Procesos de Mercado, Revista Europea de Economía Política, Volumen VIII, No. 2, pp. 263-284.
Vienna & Chicago: friends or foes? A tale of two schools of free-market economics. Mark Skousen, History of Economics Review (HER), 46, The Australian National University (ANU), Summer 2007, pp. 190-194, ISSN 1037-0196. (with Osvaldo Schenone)

Abstract: This fascinating book starts out by telling us that Friedrich A. von Hayek, alarmed by the rapid advance of socialism and the horrors of the war, summoned the main liberal thinkers of the world to a meeting that was carried out in the small town of Mont Pelerin, Switzerland, in 1947. This encounter extended for ten days at the beginning of April of that year, with the attendance of 38 intellectuals. These individuals were predominantly economists, historians and philosophers. Prominent members of both the Chicago and the Austrian Schools attended the meeting to establish a society that would have the goals of preserving a free civilisation and opposing all forms of totalitarianism. Some of the most prominent intellectuals of the twentieth century subsequently became presidents of this society, including Hayek, Wilhelm Ropke, Bruno Leoni, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, James Buchanan, Gary Becker and Pascal Salin. Of course, not everyone at the first meeting at Mont Pelerin had identical ideas with respect to every detail that was discussed. However, there was a consensus that they were, essentially, pursuing a common objective. Mark Skousen’s book is a successful attempt to review this intellectual friendship between both schools of thought, pointing out the main issues that unite or divide them.
Download Paper: "Vienna & Chicago: friends or foes? A tale of two schools of free-market economics. Mark Skousen."
Summer, 2007. By Osvaldo Schenone and Adrian Ravier. Filed Under: History of Economics Review (HER), 46, The Australian National University (ANU). pp. 194-197. 

MISCELANEOUS

Abstract: When Giancarlo Ibarguen asked me to give a lecture on the importance of history of economic thought in education, the first thing I thought was, “Who could ever argue that it was not important?” Which reminded me of a post in the personal blog of Gregory Mankiw, the author of Principles of Economics, a textbook that has sold over a million copies in seventeen languages. Mankiw replied to a student who had requested his opinion about Human Action, a treatise on economics written by Ludwig von Mises and published in 1949. His answer was sincere: “I have not read the book.” Even though he had not read the book he somehow tried to justify himself by immediately adding: “Things written more than twenty or thirty years ago are usually assumed to be irrelevant.”
Download Paper: "The history of thought in the education of an economist".
September, 2010, By Adrián Osvaldo Ravier Filed Under: Laissez Faire, Number 33, pp. 54-57.
​Abstract: The essay examines Schumpeter’s understanding of the capitalist process and develops a critical analysis of his explanation of why capitalism cannot survive. Part I deals with how Schumpeter understood capitalism. Part II studies why –- from his point of view — capitalism couldn’t survive. Part III analysis why it is actually socialism, as a socio-political alternative, that is impractical and must collapse from contradictions inherent in it. Part IV presents some final reflections, presenting the public choice and the thought of James M. Buchanan, as an alternative to the pessimist Schumpeterian view.
Download Paper: “Capitalism, Socialism and Public Choice”
October 31, 2010, By Adrián Osvaldo Ravier Filed Under: Libertarian Papers, Volume 2 (2010)
Abstract: In his Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (1967, p.168), Nobel Prize laureate Friedrich A. von Hayek explains that “from the first establishment of (trade) which served reciprocal but not common purposes, a process has been going on for millennia which, by making rules of conduct independent of the particular purposes of those concerned, made it possible to extend these rules to ever wider circles of undetermined persons and eventually might make possible a universal peaceful order of the world.”
Today, we can denominate this the process of globalization, understanding as such the process that arises spontaneously in the market and acts by developing a progressive international division of labour, eliminating restrictions on individual liberties, reducing transportation and communication costs, and increasingly integrating the individuals that compose the “great society.”
The purpose of the present essay is to attempt to deepen in this Hayekian thesis and approximate an explanation of why the said process could lead to world peace. To be consistent with Hayek’s works, we must conduct a multidisciplinary analysis of the process under consideration; analysis which must necessarily include a historical reference, an economic study, a legal approach, and finally the consideration of its cultural implications.
Download Paper: “Globalization and Peace: A Hayekian Perspective”
February 2, 2009, By Adrián Osvaldo Ravier Filed Under: Libertarian Papers, Volume 1 (2009)