Austrian economics and the analysis of labor markets

Theory and policy relating to labor markets is dominated by the mainstream labor market model, although a less well-known, socioeconomic version can also be identified. The mainstream model is methodologically flawed and forced, thereby, to relegate any (serious) investigation of labor market institutions and/or social structures to the margins of its analysis. The socioeconomic account is not so much methodologically flawed, as methodologically ambivalent. While this ambivalence does not actually prevent the investigation of institutions and/or social structures, it does promote ambiguity whenever we inquire into the precise nature of the interaction between them and labor markets. Insights from Austrian economics, when used in collaboration with critical realist methodology, can play a part in augmenting the socioeconomic account, generating a totally new approach to the analysis of labor markets. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC