Grove City College will host the 18th annual Austrian Student Scholars Conference Feb. 18 and 19 on campus.
Coordinated by the Department of Economics and Sociology, the conference offers undergraduates the opportunity to present their work for review by their peers and leading Austrian School scholars.
The conference promotes an approach that logically examines human action to reach universal economic truths as espoused by giants in the field such as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Hans Sennholz, a champion of the school who taught economics at Grove City College for more than three decades.
Students and speakers from around the world come to Grove City College for the annual meeting. This year’s keynote speakers are:
- Dr. Michael Rectenwald, chief academic officer, American Scholars, on “The Woke Hegemony: The ESG Index and Woke Cartels."
- Dr. Tate Fegley, chair of Business Studies, Montreat College, on “An Austrian Analysis of Police Unions.”
The bulk of the conference centers on student research in the tradition of the great Austrian School intellectuals. Students from will present papers on various topics including: consumer choice theory, the economics of politics, the origin of money and bitcoin, government welfare and private charity, and market theology of the early church. The top three papers, as judged by a panel of Grove City College faculty, will be awarded Thomas E. Woods awards and cash prizes.
It is fitting that the conference is held annually at Grove City College, which is known as the world’s leading undergraduate institution for the study of Austrian School economics. The tradition dates to 1956, when Sennholz, a young protégé of Mises, the dean of Austrian School economists, was hired to head the economics department. Thousands of students were introduced to the Austrian School by Sennholz. Since 1978, the College has been the permanent home of Mises’ papers and the 20,000-page archive has been the source of four books of his previously unpublished manuscripts.