Carl Menger, F.A. Hayek and the evolutionary strand in Austrian economics

Taking the Misesian and the Hayekian versions of the “Austrian paradigm” as the principal rivals in today’s Austrian economics, the paper argues in support of three claims. The claim that the “causal-genetic method”, advocated by the school’s founder, Carl Menger, suggests itself as nucleus of an evolutionary research program. The claim that among Menger’s heirs F.A. Hayek is the one who most systematically advanced the “evolutionary elements” in the founder’s work, making them a central part of his own research efforts. And the claim that, if Austrian economics aspires to be recognized as an empirical social science, it is the Mengerian-Hayekian evolutionary paradigm, not Misesian praxeology, that qualifies for this purpose.