Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Austrians believe this?

Proposition 5: The price system economizes on the information that people need to process in making their decisions.

Prices summarize the terms of exchange on the market. The price system signals to market participants the relevant information, helping them realize mutual gains from exchange. In Hayek’s famous example, when people notice that the price of tin has risen, they do not need to know whether the cause was an increase in demand for tin or a decrease in supply. Either way, the increase in the price of tin leads them to economize on its use. Market prices change quickly when underlying conditions change, which leads people to adjust quickly.
No, this is not going to work.  Price is derived, it is either a ratio of variances or a ratio of redundancy depending upon the measure.    If Hayek is what he claims, then it is not price that guides us, it is queue size. The entrepreneur uses a bounded function of production for his inputs, including money.  He is successful because he can predict money flows based on his special knowledge of production flows.   If the Austrians start with price, then they have already started with invalid macro assumptions. Sorry Peter.  Kind of a big Whoops and explains a lot about why Hayek gets complicated math from his theory.

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