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Austrians are essentialists, one of their questions being what makes a thing good? Menger and Böhm‐Bawerk gave different answers to this question. Böhm‐Bawerk directed attention explicitly to the condition of knowing how to utilise a thing. Both Menger and Böhm‐Bawerk played down their difference. The goods characteristic added by Böhm‐Bawerk to the four characteristics formulated earlier by Menger is stressed to be of value to a better understanding of modern Austrianism. A paradox that arises (the consumer is sovereign in theory but not in practice) is solved.

Böhm-Bawerk’s time preference approach had significant importance among many other theories of interest. His assertion based on inherent human nature and the distinction he made between the positive and normative aspects of interest were remarkably authentic. As it is assumed that any efficient evaluation, judgment or regulation on the legitimacy of interest has to consider the theory of time preference, especially Böhm-Bawerk’s approach, the paper aimed to examine the Islamic economists’ response to the time preference theory of interest.

The paper presents Böhm-Bawerk’s time preference theory of interest. Then, it evaluates the Islamic economists’ views on the concepts of the time value of money and time preference qualitatively by scrutinizing the relevant literature.

It is observed that there is not any proper response of Islamic economists to the assertions of the causes of time preference. Responding to such challenges requires an approach that is mostly developed in the positive domain.

Although it is evident that interest is regarded as destructive in Islamic economics, the consideration is primarily normative. However, a convincing assertion also requires to be justified in the positive domain. Empirical works are exhibiting the problems with interest-based transactions. Besides, this paper raises the need for theoretical expositions of Islamic economists in response to the interest theories, which claim that the existence of interest is inevitable.

The paper aims to provide an overview of the Austrian School's approaches to the social question before World War I.

The paper takes the form of a comparative study.

In his contributions Friedrich von Wieser supported co‐operative associations as an organizational form of big enterprise to be used as instruments to ameliorate the social condition of workers; and who dealt with issues such as private ownership of the means of production and economic inequality, impact of collective bargaining on wage formation, and public economy, where he discussed the contribution of public sector production to social value. Further reports on Böhm‐Bawerk's essay on disadvantageous consequences of free competition where he came to the conclusion that free competition in reality does not maximize national economic welfare, without, however, drawing concrete policy consequences from his findings. As Austria's finance minister he introduced a modestly progressive income tax early in the twentieth century. Later, in his essay “Control or economic law” he took a more reserved position with respect to the possibilities of correcting ore modifying outcomes of the market process.

The paper illustrates that redistribution can enhance economic welfare.

Calls back to memory that opinions of the first generation of the Austrian School (Wieser, Böhm‐Bawerk) were different from Ludwig Mises' positions expressed in Die Gemeinwirtschaft that all measures of social policy are aimed at the destruction of the free market economy, which later came to be considered as the dominant position of the Austrian School towards the social question.

Outlines the difference between the attitude of Menger and that of Böhm‐Bawerk to Roscher′s economic system. Argues that this difference symbolizes the difference in their theoretical contributions in the field of interest theory. Contrasts Menger′s use of theoretic assumption with Böhm‐Bawerk′s agio theory combined with his experience in practice.

This chapter provides a comprehensive survey of the contributions of the Austrian school of economics, with specific emphasis on post-WWII developments. We provide a brief history and overview of the original theorists of the Austrian school in order to set the stage for the subsequent development of their ideas by Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek. In discussing the main ideas of Mises and Hayek, we focus on how their work provided the foundations for the modern Austrian school, which included Ludwig Lachmann, Murray Rothbard and Israel Kirzner. These scholars contributed to the Austrian revival in the 1960s and 1970s, which, in turn, set the stage for the emergence of the contemporary Austrian school in the 1980s. We review the contemporary development of the Austrian school and, in doing so, discuss the tensions, alternative paths, and the promising future of Austrian economics.

Future needs play an important part in economic action. They urge private householders as well as society as a whole to choose between the immediate consumption of income and the saving of income for present and future satisfaction. In this situation of choice in economic conduct, Böhm‐Bawerk (1851–1914), the well‐known Austrian economist of the second generation, analysed the subject of time preference and put forward an explanation for interest. The aim of this essay is to review this theory and to assess its significance for present‐day economics.

Members of the Austrian school held particular views on capital. In this essay the development of Austrian theorising on capital is assessed and contrasted with what has been presented as the Neoclassical view. So far as this subject is concerned it was Böhm‐Bawerk, among the older members of the Austrian school, who became widely known as the main contributor (partly because some of his work was translated early).

In general, the term “Austrian Economics” has been used both descriptively and normatively. It has either designated a set of ideas about the fundamental nature of economic theory and its logical implications or it has been viewed as a conception of society and the market with certain policy implications concerning the limits to and dangers from government intervention and control.

The first Austrian school was preoccupied with the nature of capital, its time dimension, and the necessity of interest. The second school also focused on economic dynamics, but with an orientation toward issues related to entrepreneurial activity as well as the use of information and knowledge in economic evolution. The third Austrian school, which was organized around Karl Menger's mathematical colloquium in Vienna, clarified the necessary and sufficient conditions for static and dynamic economic equilibriums. In addition, it created the foundations of economic game and negotiation theories.

Ludwig Lachmann looked to the Austrian School of economics as an intellectual space of refuge from the sterile formalism that constituted the academic work of the mainstream economics establishment. From an early interest in capital theory, he moved to broader epistemological, methodological, and institutional concerns – specifically from the subjectivism of values to the subjectivism of expectations and the implications thereof for human action. Human action in disequilibrium was his central focus. This chapter examines the relationship of Lachmann’s views to the Austrians, those who preceded him, those of his time, and those who have come after him. During his lifetime, his views sometimes provoked controversy. I examine this from the perspective of 2017 and the concerns of the modern Austrian intellectual community and find that Lachmann’s views are surprisingly much more complementary to those of his contemporary Austrians than have perhaps hitherto been realized.