Hey, just a quick question… while I know Hayek and Mises both wrote at length on the topic, which work was consider the definitive text on the Business Cycle. Also, which book goes most into depth about Hayekian Triangles? Thanks in advance!
It depends, there isn’t really a “definitive” text on the subject, although, if there was I’d say Hayek’s Prices and Production. The best work on the subject is Huerta de Soto’s Money, Bank Credit and Economic Cycles. Huerta de Soto doesn’t really cover Hayekian triangles though.
As for Hayekian triangles, if you want a work covering that you’d best look into Roger Garrison’s Time and Money, I’m finishing it now, it’s a great book, well worth reading. In addition Walter Block and William Barnett II have a working paper on their use.
All of the books/ articles mentioned are available for free on this site.
perfect, thank you!
Actually, sorry, I stand corrected, Garrison’s book isn’t available on the site. Nonetheless it’s fairly cheap.
I hear that the Block/Barnett paper questions the validity of using Hayekian triangles. Or claim that they are merely a heuristic device. Is this true?
http://mises.org/journals/scholar/block18.pdf
Abstract: The triangle is an integral part of the history of economic thought. It has been used by
writers such as Jevons (1871), Taussig (1896), Wicksell (1934, 1969) to illustrate and to help us
understand capital theory. Since Hayek (1931) this geometrical figure has been used as a basic
pedagogical device to explain the Austrian Business Cycle Theory (ABCT). The purpose of the
present paper is to argue that the triangle is highly problematic, if not fatally flawed, and that if
ABCT is to be made intelligible this tool of analysis must be either completely jettisoned, or
heavily supplemented with a list (see below) of its shortcomings. Moreover in some ways the
triangle has been responsible for the relative lack of development of ABCT for over a half
century.
I’d say that what you heard is appropriate.