The Continental Economics Institute Research Program
Capital-Based Macroeconomics
This research project is directed at developing a capital-based business cycle model that
integrates aspects that have been left out in the conventional macro models such as
entrepreneurship, time, roundaboutness, and a micro-foundation with roots in the economics
of the firm.
First results were presented at the University Francisco Marroquin (UFM), at the Federal
University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), and at the Prague Conference on Political Economy
(PCPE) in 2006. An on-line video presentation can be downloaded here.

Money and Banking as Promoter and Catalysts of Financial Crises
Based on the Misesian theory of money, this project is directed at analyzing the role of
modern central banks in their linkage to the fractional reserve system of the commercial
banking sector as the prime root of financial instability. In this perspective, financial crises
are created by the banking sector that produces economic crises in the first place but is
exposed to a feedback process in which both the economic and the financial crises tend to
re-enforce each other.
See paper on Financial Cycles. An online video presentation can be downloaded here.

Transformation of the International Monetary System
This research project examines the challenges to the role of the U.S.-dollar as an
international reserve and transaction currency with the main focal points directed at the
U.S.-monetary policy, the euro, and the Asian and Latin American currency arrangements.
The monetary background of trade deficits and their economic consequences are treated


Entrepreneurship and Economic Development
This project investigates the role of the entrepreneur as the driving force of economic growth
and development. Different from the neoclassical theory and the
Schumpeterian view, the basic model of this research is the entrepreneur as a
purposeful actor who deals with the uncertainties of roundabout production
ventures. This way, aspects are highlighted which often have been left out in
economic growth and development theories, such as time, external risks, taxation, the market
structure, and government interventions. It is shown that the
entrepreneur is the essential factor for economic growth because it is he who envisions new
business ideas and puts them at test in the markets by which he receives information and
incentives in terms of prices, profit and loss.


Governance
This research project covers various issues ranging from the breakdown
of the modern welfare state to the instability of the international financial system. The
common focus is provided by the thesis that the global crisis of governance is mainly the
result of state interventionism with its inherent expansion and its tendency towards the
destruction of spontaneous institutions.
As to the welfare state see here.
Concerning the international financial system go to here. The monetary background of trade
deficits and their economic consequences are treated here and here. For an on-line video
presentation go to here.
Latest Research
Notes
The task of
ordo-libertarian
economics as a
research program
consists in discerning,
analyzing and
designing those
institutional
arrangements that
promote the attainment
of the objective of the
"progressive
accumulation of new
capital and its utilization
for the improvement of
technical methods of
production" (Mises) in
order to create a
humane and
prosperous society.