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Monthly 1980–2014 data are examined to determine how employment responds to money supply shocks in Canada and the United States. The focus of the analysis is a comparison of the real economies’ responses to the financial crisis and the great recession. Employment is used as a proxy for real output, though it may respond to monetary shocks with a longer lag. Vector autoregression models are specified, estimated, and interpreted. Impulse response functions are examined to assess the impact of innovations in monetary policy. A comparison of the response of employment to monetary innovations allows for evaluation of alternative business cycle theories and of the relative efficacy of Canadian v. U.S. monetary policy. Cross-border impacts are also assessed. Granger causality tests are used to examine whether money supply growth causes unemployment, whether monetary shocks cause higher or lower employment, and distinguish between short-run and long-run effects.

Purpose – Recent findings in neurobiology, cognitive psychology, and brain evolution are interpreted in light of Hayek's construction of the sensory order as a spontaneously emergent evolutionary adaptation. The sensory order is an experimental view of reality ordered by experience.

Approach – Natural selection of behavioral and cognitive adaptations is shown to result in structural change within the brain. Individual brains grow, and species brains evolve, through the construction and evaluation of hypothetical classification schemata. This process both results in the construction of the sensory order, as well as results from the particular models of objective reality that individuals have constructed, their evaluation of these models, and the comparison of our own models with those of others.

Findings – Cognitive adaptations, such as belief in agency, causal reasoning, and theory of mind, are inherited because they enhance survival and reproductive opportunities. In addition, behavioral adaptations including empathy, reciprocity, social hierarchy, and peacemaking are also inherited. Socialization in larger groups required the evolution of enhanced brain connectivity permitting a greater degree and sophistication of social intercourse.

Research Implications – Recent findings in neurobiology can be better related to one another in terms of how they contribute to the sensory order. Literary Darwinism, a school of literary theory, can also be understood more fully.

Originality/Value of Paper – Varied developments in modern neurobiology and cognitive psychology are shown to lead to spontaneously emergent institutional structures, such as behavioral regularities and rules of morality, which further enhance the survival benefits of inherited brain structure and the sensory order.

This introduction summarizes each of the papers in Studies in Austrian Macroeconomics. It begins with a brief overview of the core ideas and development of modern Austrian macroeconomics, focusing on its theory of the business cycle. The papers are then discussed by parts, starting with the papers on Austrian monetary and business cycle theory, followed by those addressing the relationship between the US and Canadian economic performance, and concluding with the three papers on the political economy of regulation and crisis.

Some of the best entrepreneurs fail early and often. Less talented or less committed entrepreneurs do not even get a second chance. Failure and setbacks, however, can be instructive.What lessons can be learned from these experiences? How can the entrepreneur (and investors) navigate around the potholes on the New Venture Highway? Read on.