Abstract

Three generations of Viennese male economists worked in Vienna, either at the university or in private economic institutions, between the 1870s and early 1930s (Mises 1984). They are responsible for constructing the foundations of the Austrian School of economics. These men were a cohesive group of economists who developed an economic theory combining human and social dynamics with classical liberalism. To the first generation belonged founding father Carl Menger (1840–1921), who in 1871 published his Principles (Menger 1871), Eugene Böhm-Bawerk (1851–1914), and Friedrich Wieser (1851–1926). Their immediate followers (the second generation) were: Joseph Schumpeter (1883–1950), Gottfried Haberler (1900–1995), Hans Mayer (1879–1975), and Ludwig Mises (1881–1973). In the third generation are Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992), Paul Rosenstein-Rodan (1902–1985), Ludwig Lachman (1906–1990), ¹ and Fritz Machlup (1902–1983), (Holcombe 2014; Boettke and Coyne 2015).