The complexity of these issues is great. Within Austrian circles for example Rothbard worked with Joseph Dorfman yet he always claimed as his teacher Ludwig von Mises. Lachmann worked with Sombart, but again claims it was reading Mises's essays in the 1920s that facinated him, and then he worked with Hayek at the LSE in the 1930s. Even Hayek did not study with Mises technically, but it was Mises that influenced him more than any other scholar. Many Austrians, Gerald O'Driscoll and Larry White, worked closely with Axel Leijonhufvud at UCLA, as did many work with Alchian and Demsetz as well. Rizzo worked with Landes and Stigler at Chicago. At George Mason University in the 1980s, students were as exposed to Austrian economics as they were to public choice economics. Buchanan and Tullock were extremely influential on students working in the Austrian program. In the case of Dave Prychitko and myself, Kenneth Boulding -- who taught at GMU during our time there for two years -- was also very influential in terms of thought processes. Prychitko later went as a post-doc to study with Vanek at Cornell, and in my case the work of Warren Samuels has been very influential on my perception of where the project of economics must go and what questions we should ask [even if I don't always agree with Warren's answers :)).. At Auburn University today the only Austrian on the full-time faculty is Roger Garrison. Ekelund and Hebert, however, are the major influences in the department from what I understand. So Austrian economics even at one of its orthodox centers of thought, the LvM Institute, does not generate students without cross influences educationally. A family tree would be important and interesting to construct, but I don't know if PhD training as much as "thought" would really capture the idea. And the cross fertlization that makes growth of knowledge possible complicated matters further. I am pretty sure that the story of Austrian economics is no different than other schools of thought within economics. Pete __________________________________________________________ Peter J. Boettke Assistant Professor Department of Economics New York University 269 Mercer Street New York, NY 10003 phone: (212) 998-8959 fax: (212) 995-4186 email: [log in to unmask] __________________________________________________________