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Jeffrey M. Herbener

Jeffrey M. Herbener (born 1955) is an American economist of the Austrian School.

Educational background

Herbener studied economics at Oklahoma State University where he was trained in what he describes as the "mathematical-neoclassical tradition." While Herbener briefly encountered some of the theories of Austrian economist Eugen Böhm-Bawerk during his formal education, it was not until he was teaching in his first position at Pittsburg State University that Herbener became acquainted with the works of F.A. Hayek, and later Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard.^[1]

Academic career

Besides serving as an economics instructor at Pittsburg State University, Herbener has also taught at Washington and Jefferson College and currently holds the position of professor of economics at Grove City College in Pennsylvania^[2]. Herbener is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, where he was also long-time director of the Institute's "Austrian Scholars Conference."^[1] He is associate editor of their Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics.^[3]

Criticism of Phillips curve

Herbener has notably criticized^[4][5] the Phillips curve, which theorizes that an inverse relationship exists between money wage changes and unemployment. According to Herbener,

A professor of mine used to say that the Phillips Curve is a fact in search of a theory. But he had it backwards. It never was a fact. The theory was that there was a trade-off between unemployment and inflation. But if you go back to the original article by Phillips, he never demonstrates that such a thing exists in the real world. He manipulated and maneuvered the data around to make it look as if there was one. Once his errors are swept away, and the data broken down, the Phillips Curve vanishes as any kind of long-run pattern. It didn't take stagflation to teach us that. It was always untrue.^[1]

Notes