Volume. 3, No. 2 (Summer 2000)
The step-by-step analysis in Dinero, Crédito Bancario y Ciclos Económicos, which starts from legal distinctions and then proceeds to discuss related economic issues, has a decidedly Rothbardian twist. Huerta de Soto’s solid elaboration of his arguments along these lines makes his treatise a model illustration of the Austrian approach to the study of the relationship between law and economics. In this approach, legal distinctions are fundamental and economic analysis is a derived analysis. The latter takes up the distinctions established by the former and explores their economic significance. As de Soto’s pathbreaking analysis demonstrates, this approach to law and economics is not only relevant for the understanding of micro-economic phenomena like consumer demand and pricing, but is also helpful to elucidate macro-phenomena like inflation and business cycles. Dinero, Crédito Bancario y Ciclos Económicos is the most comprehensive analysis of fractional-reserve banking and of business cycles in print. All serious students of these subject matters will have to become acquainted with it. Let us hope, therefore, that it will soon be translated.
