Hayek Essay Contest 2016

“Competition operates as a discovery procedure not only by giving anyone who has the opportunity to exploit special circumstances the possibility to do so profitably, but also by conveying to the other parties the information that there is some such opportunity. It is by this conveying of information in coded form that the competitive efforts of the market game secure the utilization of widely dispersed knowledge”

– Hayek, F.A., 1976b. Law, Legislation and Liberty , Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

“Competition is “a procedure for discovering facts which, if the procedure did not exist, would remain unknown or at least would not be used”

– Hayek, F.A., 1968/2002. Competition as a discovery procedure. (Marcellus S. Snow Trans.) Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 5, 9-23.

“It [government provision of money] has the defects of all monopolies: one must use their product even if it is unsatisfactory, and, above all, it prevents the discovery of better methods of satisfying a need for which a monopolist has no incentive”

– Hayek. F.A., 1976a/1990. The Denationalisation of Money, Third Edition, Institute of Economic Affairs, London.