Austrian Economics in Business

What can economics actually teach you about running a business? From the mainstream, Per Bylund argues, very little—its models have no room for the entrepreneur at all. Austrian economics is a different matter. Working from Menger forward, Bylund lays out the sequence every business faces: costs come first and certain, value comes last and unknown. From that he draws the practical implications—why cost-plus pricing is a recipe for failure, why no producer has "pricing power" even as a monopolist, why the firm is best understood as a temporary island of specialization, and why the entrepreneur's only real question is how best to serve the consumer.Recorded at the Mises Institute in Auburn, Alabama, on July 23, 2026.Mises University is the world's leading instructional program in the Austrian School of economics, and is the essential training ground for economists who are looking beyond the mainstream.