Joseph T. Salerno

Joseph T. Salerno

Joseph T. Salerno received his Ph.D. in economics from Rutgers University. He is professor emeritus of economics in the Finance and Graduate Economics Department in the Lubin School of Business of Pace University in New York City. He is the editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Academic Vice President of the Ludwig von Mises Institute where he held the inaugural Peterson-Luddy Chair in Austrian Economics.  He also holds the John V. Denson II Endowed Professorship in the economics department at Auburn University. 

Articles by Joseph T. Salerno

The Myth of the Unchanging Value of Gold

According to mainstream economics textbooks, one of the primary functions of money is to measure the value of goods and services exchanged on the market. A typical statement of this view is given by Frederic Mishkin in his textbook on money and banking. “[M]oney … is used to measure value in the economy,” he claims. “We measure the value of goods and services in terms of money, just as we measure weight in terms of pounds and distance in terms of miles.”
When money is conceived as a measure of value, the policy implication is that one of the primary objectives of the central bank should be to maintain a stable price level. This supposedly will remove inflationary noise from the economy and ensure that any changes in money prices that do occur tend to reflect a change in the relative

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Why You Should Read Human Action—Very Carefully

May 16–18, 2024:  Join Dr. Joseph T. Salerno, Dr. Thomas J. DiLorenzo, Dr. Jörg Guido Hülsmann, Dr. Joseph T. Salerno, Dr. Mark Thornton, and more for a conference in honor of the 75th anniversary of Human Action at our campus in Auburn.

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The Wrong Way and the Right Way to Fix the Fed

Monetary Policy as Inflationism
Today all governments and central banks operate under the ideology of inflationism. The underlying principle of inflationism is that the quantity and purchasing power of money determined by the free market leads to deflation, recession, and unemployment in the economy. The inflationist ideology is therefore embedded in the very concept of monetary policy, which can be defined as an increase in the supply of money aimed at lowering the purchasing power below the level determined by market forces. In other words, the purpose of monetary policy is perpetual inflation of money and prices.
For the past sixty years there has been a great debate about monetary policy. Some economists argue that monetary policy should be left to the discretion of expert central

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The Progressive Road to Socialism

There has been a radical change in the social and political landscape in this country, and any person who desires the victory of liberty and the defeat of Leviathan must adjust his strategy accordingly. New times require a rethinking of old and possibly obsolete strategies. —Murray N. Rothbard1
Murray Rothbard wrote the above words in 1994, shortly before his untimely passing. They sum up the main theme of a series of brilliant articles that he published in the 1990s calling for a radical readjustment of libertarian strategy to the new political and social realities that had emerged in the aftermath of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In these articles, Rothbard identified both the abstract social philosophy and the concrete political movement that then had

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The Phony Debate on Fiat Money: Rules versus Discretion

Recorded at the Mises Institute Supporters Summit in Auburn, Alabama, 12-14 October 2023. Sponsored by Wilfried and Barbara Puscher

The Phony Debate on Fiat Money: Rules versus Discretion | Joseph T. Salerno

Video of The Phony Debate on Fiat Money: Rules versus Discretion | Joseph T. Salerno

Download the slides from this lecture at Mises.org/SS23_PPT_2

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Calculation and Socialism

In 1920, Ludwig von Mises destroyed the intellectual foundations of the case for socialist central planning.
Download lecture slides at Mises.org/MU23_PPT_12.
Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 25 July 2023.

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The Birth of the Austrian School

Menger discovered much more than the principle of marginal utility—he created an entire system of economics based on subjective value and individual choice.
Download lecture slides at Mises.org/MU23_PPT_03.
Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 24 July 2022.

The Birth of the Austrian School | Joseph T. Salerno

Video of The Birth of the Austrian School | Joseph T. Salerno

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Welcome and Opening Remarks

Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on 23 July 2023.

Welcome and Opening Remarks | Joseph T. Salerno

Video of Welcome and Opening Remarks | Joseph T. Salerno

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Ludwig von Mises’s Monetary Theory in Light of Modern Monetary Thought

Ludwig von Mises’s contributions to the development of the technical methods and apparatus of monetary theory continue to be neglected today, despite the fact that Mises succeeded exactly eight decades ago, while barely out of his twenties, in a task that still admittedly defies the best efforts of the most eminent of modern monetary theorists, viz., integrating monetary and value theory. Such a unified and truly "general theory" is necessary to satisfactorily explain the functioning of the market economy, because the market economy, or any economy based on social cooperation under the division of labor, cannot exist without monetary exchange and calculation.1
Mises’s work on monetary economics is not only ignored by the roiled mainstream of neo- and "new" Keynesians, monetarists, and new

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Murray Rothbard versus the Progressives

There has been a radical change in the social and political landscape in this country, and any person who desires the victory of liberty and the defeat of Leviathan must adjust his strategy accordingly. New times require a rethinking of old and possibly obsolete strategies.

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Why I Love “Price Discrimination”

Last week, I went to a vision center to get my new eyeglass prescription filled. Because I wear progressive lenses with antireflective coating and do not have vision insurance, I anticipated that the out-of-pocket cost of the glasses would be quite high. When I entered the shop and stated my business, the manager immediately asked if I had vision insurance, and I responded that I did not.

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Rothbard vs. the Religion of Progressivism

Our main text for the Rothbard Graduate Seminar this week is Murray Rothbard’s Power and Market: Government and the Economy, which contains a systematic treatment of one area of economic theory, interventionism.

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Let Unsound Money Wither Away

Chairman Paul and members of the subcommittee, I am deeply honored to appear before you to testify on the topic of fractional-reserve banking. Thank you for your invitation and attention. In the short time I have, I will give a brief description of fractional reserve-banking, identify the problems it presents in the current institutional setting, and suggest a potential solution.

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Banking and Monetary Policy from the Perspective of Austrian Economics

The editors are to be heartily congratulated for putting together this book, which covers an impressive range of topics in monetary economics from an explicitly Austrian perspective. Most of the twelve essays are of a very high quality and one will learn much about money and related topics by a careful reading of them.

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Money Creation – Not Low Interest Rates – Is Behind the Boom-Bust Cycle

Effective Federal Funds Rate/M2 Money Stock

In a recent article entitled “Where Are All the Austrian Scholars’ Yachts?” John Tamny has criticized Austrian economists, and Mark Thornton in particular, for their skepticism regarding the relatively “ebullient stock market” in the midst of the pandemic. Mark Thornton responded to Tamny’s main argument in an earlier post. In this post, I will address two serious errors that underlie Tamny’s argument. 

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6b.) P: Mises.org 2014-11-26 19:26:01

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