Grove City College Professor of Economics and Department Chair Dr. Jeffrey M. Herbener was recently named Peterson-Luddy Chair in Austrian Economics at the Mises Institute.
The Peterson-Luddy Chair is awarded in recognition of continuing scholarship and teaching in Austrian economics, something Herbener has spent most of the last three decades doing at Grove City College, which has embraced and advanced the theories of Carl Menger, Ludwig Von Mises, and other Austrian thinkers since the 1950s.
“It is an honor to be appointed the Peterson-Luddy Chair. The previous holders of the chair have been illustrious contributors to the Austrian approach in economics,” Herbener said.
“Dr. Herbener’s scholarship and intellectual integrity are second to none. He is an excellent teacher, and his students enjoy his classes. Grove City College and the School of Business are blessed to count him as a colleague and friend. We join in congratulating him and celebrating this well-deserved honor,” said Dr. Michelle McFeaters ’88, ’02, dean of the School of Business and professor of Accounting.
Herbener follows in the footsteps of Drs. Joseph Salerno, Guido Hülsmann, and Mark Thornton as holder of the chair. The Mises Institute is a non-profit think tank headquartered in Auburn, Ala., that promotes the teaching of Austrian economics, and stands for libertarian thought, freedom, and peace.
The Austrian school dates back to 1871, when Menger, a professor at the University of Vienna, published “Principles of Economics.” Along with works by two neoclassical economists, Menger’s book ushered in modern economics. While the three authors shared certain pathbreaking insights, the neoclassical approach to economics is based on formal models of the economy. In contrast, Menger built economics on a realistic foundation.
Austrian economics begins with the basic truths about the nature of man and the world. The fundamental truth upon which all economic theory rests is human action. Austrian economics attempts to discover the universal, logical structure of human action and apply it to our understanding of past events throughout history.
Mises built on Menger’s work in the 20th century and was considered the dean of Austrian scholars. One of his strongest supporters was J. Howard Pew, the longtime chair of Grove City College’s Board of Trustees and president of Sun Oil. Because the Austrian approach to economics is grounded on a realistic foundation of human nature and human action, Pew perceived that it is consistent with a Christian view of God, man, and nature.
In 1956, Pew hired Mises’ student Hans Sennholz to lead the economics department. Over nearly 40 years, Sennholz built the department into the world’s the leading undergraduate center for the study of Austrian economics. Under Herbener’s leadership since 1997, the Economics Department has built on the foundation laid by leaders of the past and remained committed to the Austrian approach, grounded in a Christian understanding of the human person.
Next year, the College will begin offering a Master of Arts in Economics degree program, realizing a longtime goal of Pew and Sennholz. The program is thoroughly Austrian.