3,673 works, 150 years of economic thought. Each one summarized and searchable, with cited passages inside.
Could the Federal Reserve curb stock-market speculation while encouraging credit to agriculture and industry? In this 1930 article, Oskar Morgenstern examines the institutional conflict behind that ambition, rather than attempting a general explanation of the crash. He distinguishes the New York Reserve Bank’s repeated requests for higher discount rates from the Washington Board’s resistance, which he attributes to political calculation. His central concern is the gap between statutory design and working authority: a formally decentralized system had developed around New York’s financial leadership. Readers can discover how apparently inconsistent policy emerged from competing centres of power—and assess Morgenstern’s case for giving experienced bankers greater independence from government.
Three schools of subjective value theory—or three ways of expressing one principle? In this 1931 contribution to Probleme der Wertlehre, Oskar Morgenstern compares Austrian, Lausanne, and Anglo-American approaches by asking what each contributes to explaining prices. His reconciliation is not neutral: he favors Austrian analysis for its treatment of planning, substitution, and adjustment, while finding substantial agreement beneath differences in terminology and mathematical presentation. Concrete problems give the comparison its force: how recurring needs shape present choices, why a good’s utility depends on the rest of one’s possessions, and how production costs express sacrificed alternatives. Readers can discover both the common ground Morgenstern identifies and the unresolved tension between describing equilibrium and explaining how an economy moves toward it.
Stable prices can be a sign of economic distress rather than resilience. In this two-installment article, Oskar Morgenstern argues that recovery depends on changing relationships among prices, not simply on a rising or falling general index. His concrete concern is the manufacturer caught between declining selling prices and inputs kept expensive by cartels and tariffs. German iron-cartel rebates add another difficulty: secret discounts leave firms unable to judge their competitors’ costs. Austrian iron, coal and food prices show how unevenly adjustment proceeds. Morgenstern connects these cases with accounting practices and buyers’ expectations, distinguishing obstacles to price reductions from monopoly income that could absorb them. The article offers a precise account of why apparent price stability may conceal shrinking production—and why Morgenstern favours removing protective tariffs over imposing administrative price cuts.
Mathematical notation can clarify economic reasoning—or merely give familiar propositions a formal appearance. In this signed encyclopaedia subsection, originally published in 1931 and reprinted in 1937, Oskar Morgenstern asks what mathematics actually contributes to explanation. He treats it as a logical instrument, not the doctrine of a separate economic school, and distinguishes its usefulness from its necessity. The contrast between Marshall’s selective analysis and Walras and Pareto’s interconnected systems makes the stakes concrete: manageable simplicity versus comprehensive accounts of market dependence. His historical survey also shows how indifference curves allow economists to compare preferences without measuring utility exactly. Readers can discover a qualified defence of mathematical economics that judges formal techniques by the economic problems they help resolve, rather than by their notation alone.
Economic theory cannot tell a government which ends to pursue, since those belong to value and politics, yet no rational policy is possible without it. From this double thesis Morgenstern develops the "application problem" at the heart of his 1934 study, reprinted here in the original German: because economics lacks physics-like constants and works through shifting relations, every intervention rests on contested theoretical beliefs about cause and effect. He shows how policy effects scatter unevenly, concentrated and visible losses outweighing dispersed future gains, so organized producers systematically outmaneuver diffuse consumers. Since measures interlock through the price system, the only value-free scientific principle he can offer is consistency, freedom from contradiction. Drawing on Böhm-Bawerk, he treats power as widening the zone of indeterminacy rather than abolishing economic law, and closes with a withering account of the "Vulgärökonomie" of slogans and patent remedies.
Eine flackernde Fackel ist völliger Finsternis vorzuziehen.
English translation: “A flickering torch is preferable to complete darkness.”
Hidden inside general-equilibrium theory sits a premise its authors rarely state: that agents foresee the future without error. Morgenstern treats this 'vollkommene Voraussicht' not as a harmless simplification but as a logical fault line running through theories of risk, profit, money, and the business cycle. Pressed for its meaning — whose foresight, of which events, over what horizon — the assumption collapses. In a world of interdependent agents each forecast must include others' forecasts of oneself, and the Holmes–Moriarty regress of anticipated reactions and counter-reactions has no natural stopping point. Unlimited foresight, he shows, is simply incompatible with equilibrium, while total ignorance is impossible too. What remains is a research program: expectations as heterogeneous, fallible, socially distributed variables — an early step toward the strategic reasoning of game theory.
Unbeschränkte Voraussicht und wirtschaftliches Gleichgewicht sind also miteinander unverträglich.
English translation: “Unlimited foresight and economic equilibrium are therefore incompatible with each other.”
Preserving railway tracks and rolling stock is not necessarily preserving capital. In this 1936 article, Oskar Morgenstern uses the conflict between railways and motor transport to test whether Austria’s transport policy coheres with its commitments to currency stability, budgetary balance, and competitive exports. He challenges protection based on past investment without assuming that every low road-haulage price reflects genuine efficiency: losses shifted to creditors and unequal obligations can distort the comparison. His distinctive concern is the economy beyond the carriers. Freight tariffs can effectively move factories farther from foreign markets, while restrictions on new transport can postpone rather than prevent costly adjustment. The article offers a concrete way to distinguish protection of inherited assets from policies that sustain productive activity.
Faithful exposition is not the same as a convincing test of a theory. In this short review of Arthur Schweitzer’s study of Spiethoff’s business-cycle theory, Oskar Morgenstern welcomes renewed attention to Spiethoff’s treatment of capital but questions the standards used to assess it. Why demand conformity to a preconceived theoretical system when the conjectures themselves remain untested? Morgenstern offers a concrete alternative: compare rival notions of “capital shortage” and investigate them statistically. His measured judgement distinguishes the value of recovering neglected work from the task of establishing its explanatory strength. The review gives readers a concise instance of economic criticism that asks not merely whether an account is faithful or systematic, but what evidence would help decide between competing explanations.
An introductory textbook can make economics intelligible without pretending that its problems are settled. In this 1939 review of Frederic Benham’s Economics, Oskar Morgenstern makes that distinction central to his praise. He values Benham’s clear explanation of indifference curves and synthesis of production theory, but especially his willingness to acknowledge where economic analysis falls short. Morgenstern would push this candor further: exposing weak spots can awaken curiosity rather than undermine instruction. His reservations about income theory, risk, and profit sharpen a compact account of what beginners need—breadth, proportion, and reasons to question apparent certainty rather than specialize prematurely.
One of the principal aims of teaching theory should be to avoid barren specialization at too early a stage.
Protecting a producer’s price can unsettle everything around it. In this 1939 address, Oskar Morgenstern examines European public monopolies through the incentives their guarantees create, rather than their formal administrative structure. Austria’s milk regulation and Czechoslovakia’s grain monopoly supply concrete cases: protected prices encourage output while consumption falls, leaving authorities to finance surpluses, restrict production, and police unofficial trade. His central contention is that each attempt to preserve the original price commitment demands further controls. Political interests in distribution help explain why retreat proves difficult. The address offers a sharply critical account of the difference between stabilizing prices and stabilizing economic life, tracing how measures intended to protect producers can shift costs onto consumers, employment, and unprotected sectors.
When do statistical graphs substantiate an economic theory, rather than merely illustrate it? In this brief review of Joseph A. Schumpeter’s Business Cycles, Oskar Morgenstern admires the attempt to connect entrepreneurial innovation and credit expansion with economic history, yet questions the evidentiary force of its statistics. His objections are concrete: specialized business-cycle measurements go unused, and graphs sometimes lack scales and index bases. Neither criticism cancels his appreciation of Schumpeter’s discussion of time series and economic waves. The review offers a compact example of methodological judgement: Morgenstern distinguishes theoretical ambition, historically informed explanation, and independently useful statistical evidence without demanding that admiration exclude disagreement.
How should a history of economic theory compare doctrines that changed in response to their critics? In this 1940 review of Gaëtan Pirou’s lectures on marginal utility, Oskar Morgenstern praises exact exposition while questioning comparisons that set early formulations against later objections. His scrutiny is concrete: Austrian attention to monopoly helps explain the challenge to classical value theory, while Pirou’s grouping of Fetter with Seligman risks confusing distinct accounts of welfare and social value. Morgenstern also asks why Carver receives more attention than Fisher. The review offers a compact encounter with his standards for intellectual history: distinguish neighboring concepts, question inherited reputations, and keep the chronology of controversy visible.