[SnailWizard]

I was under the impression that Austrian economics was mostly considered fringe, much like (human-caused) climate change deniers. I have no formal training in economics other than a "101" class in univ, just wondering what your background is and if you could fill me in more on it. Thanks!

[jnordwick]

Austrian can be considered a branch of classical economics. Calling it entirely fringe is gross over-generalization. Like I don't agree on their view on monetary policy, but I would never label the entire branch as fringe. They have some areas they depart, but they also have some areas where they agree with literally hundreds of years of political economics, including contemporaries. The world doesn't revolve around Keynesians.

I went to UC Berkeley and went though almost an entire minor in econ but now work in financial technology and developing trading systems and strategies, everything from statistical arbitrage to macro- and micro-economic news events to options.

I buy the story on the Phillips curve (not only attacks by the Austrials, but pretty much everybody except Keynsians) because the data against it is just really good. When I was in school I bought into the theory, but since then I've been convinced pretty heavily that the correlation only exists because of policy actions and the causation definitely doesn't exist. I used to have some correspondence with a former Reagan adviser (a Democrat) that was really quite persuasive.