The Austrian School of Economics

This paper explores the intellectual context of the Department of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) during the 1930s. We will be focusing on the contributions of F.A. Hayek, along with Lionel Robbins, in fostering an intellectual environment for the transmission and incorporation of Austrian economics, particularly the works of Ludwig von Mises. In doing so we illustrate that Hayek and Robbins were attempting to craft a unified tradition of economic theory that consisted of various strands of economic thought that had either contributed to, or were consistent with, the Austrian tradition. The work done by Hayek, as well as Robbins, at the LSE not only consolidated the ideas of the Austrian tradition that had developed from Vienna. In doing so, they also rearticulated the broader theoretical contributions of classical political economy as a counterweight against an emerging neoclassical and Keynesian paradigm.