"It's the only conference of its kind. The Austrian Student Scholars Conference is for young economics students. We have a critical mass of bright students rooted in a tradition of truth and freedom.  But they have no forum outside of their classes to present their scholarship. Hence, they have little incentive to pursue their scholarly research interests. There are other students around the world lacking this opportunity as well. We created the Austrian Student Scholars Conference to fill this void," said Grove City College economics professor Dr. Shawn Ritenour. The Austrian Student Scholars Conference takes place today and tomorrow at Grove City College under the direction Grove City College economics department chairman Dr. Jeffrey M. Herbener.  

Conference attendees will hear 22 economics presentations by students from around the country and from Grove City College. Some of the presentation topics, based on scholarly papers submitted in advance of the conference, include:

"Government Failure in the Food Program in India" by Triyakshan Vendatraman of George Mason University

"Securing Security: A Free Market Approach to the Airline Industry" by Abigail Johnson of Grove City College

"The Federal Reserve System, Fiat Money, and the Legal Basis for Fractional Reserve Banking" by Thomas Winton of George Mason University

Open to undergraduates and first-year graduate students in any academic discipline, the conference brings together students to present their own research papers written in the tradition of the great Austrian School intellectuals such as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard, and Hans Sennholz.

"Students benefit from the opportunity to have a type of graduate school experience prior to applying for, or attending, graduate school. It helps them with career decisions. Students not seeking graduate studies are provided an opportunity to explore in depth an economics subject that interests them," Ritenour said. "The fact is that social policy is a large part of the core of politics. We live in a democracy and the better one understands true economic law, the better able he or she will be to contribute to our democracy. Ludwig Von Mises said, 'Whether we like it or not it is a fact that economics cannot remain an esoteric branch of knowledge accessible only to small groups of scholars and specialists. Economics deals with society's fundamental problems; it concerns everyone and belongs to all. It is the main and proper study of every citizen.'"

Cash prizes of $1,000, $750, and $500 will be awarded for the top three papers, respectively, as judged by a select panel of Grove City College faculty.

Peter G. Klein, assistant professor of economics and director of the Contracting and Organizations Research institute at the University of Missouri will give the Sennholz Lecture  titled "Why the Intellectuals Support Socialism." Ralph Raico, professor of European history at Buffalo State College, will deliver the Mises Lecture titled "The Legacy of Ludwig Von Mises." Klein and Raico are senior fellows at the Mises Institute.

In 1956, J. Howard Pew hired Hans Sennholz, the young protégé of the dean of Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises, to head the economics department at Grove City College. Under his direction, Grove City College became the world’s leading undergraduate institution for the study of Austrian economics. Five years after Mises died in 1973, his widow, Margit von Mises, sought out their friend, Hans Sennholz, to make Grove City College permanent home to his papers and library. Sennholz gratefully accepted custody of the papers and hoped that Mises’s library would wind up at a graduate program where students would be capable of benefiting from it. Since 1978, the 20,000 page Mises Archive at GCC has already been the source of four books of his previously unpublished manuscripts.

V&V

Contact Dr. Jeffrey Herbener at jmherbener@gcc.edu                                                                  

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