Prompted by an online debate about whether economics belongs with the hard sciences, Bob reviews common defenses of mainstream practice and explains why they don’t settle the scientific status of the field. He outlines the Mises–Rothbard view: economics as praxeology (logic of action), closer to geometry than laboratory testing, with core insights on opportunity cost, incentives, prices, money, and policy constraints that don’t depend on forecasting the exact timing of crashes.

• Understanding Money Mechanics: Mises.org/HAP526a
• Bob's Mises Daily Article, "Economists Can Be Hilarious": Mises.org/HAP526b
• Hoppe's Economic Science and the Austrian Method: Mises.org/HAP526c
• Lessons for the Young Economist: Mises.org/HAP526d

The Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFree

Dr. Jonathan Newman joins the Human Action Podcast to discuss his recent QJAE article disputing the claim that 'sticky prices' prevent markets from clearing--i.e., when the quantity supplied equals the quantity demanded. Dr. Newman applies Mises’s “plain state of rest” to show that each voluntary exchange equates quantities supplied and demanded, so observed “stickiness” doesn’t imply non-clearing markets.

• "There Ain't No Such Thing as a Sticky Price": Mises.org/HAP525a

The Mises Institute is giving away 100,000 copies of Hayek for the 21st Century. Get your free copy at Mises.org/HAPodFree

Has economics fallen to politics? Court economists like Paul Krugman–we might call them "regime economists"–represent a profession in big trouble. Jeff and Bob discuss.