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Austrian Business Cycle Theory can shed light on the ways in which the current Chinese economic boom is unsustainable. On the one hand, government interventions, such as land monopolies, have raised costs for real estate developers. By limiting the availability of investment instruments and access to external markets, government interventions have created a strong demand for housing as a hedging tool. On the other hand, a loose monetary policy and artificially low interest rates have made the property market tempting for developers. Over-construction and over-consumption in the housing sector epitomise the capital structure analysis that Austrian economists regard as the core of their business cycle theory.

Interventionist thinkers are now claiming intellectual victory, blaming the free-market system and its ideology for the current economic collapse. We find this thesis untenable, drawing on the Austrian Business Cycle Theory. Instead, we argue that the roots of our present downturn lie in the monetary system, whose institutional structure is far from any free-market ideal. Moreover, several government policies have contributed to the problems.

The Austrian economists' analysis of the trade cycle and the Great Depression has relevance for the current global economic crisis. Excessive bank lending leads to unsustainable distortions in the economy causing the recession, which government spending can do little to mitigate. The long-run solution is a banking system with a high reserve ratio or competition in currencies.

Contemporary economic commentators have a habit of dismissing Austrian business cycle theory on the grounds that the implications for policy responses are unconvincing. Often the ‘Austrian’ position is misunderstood. But even if we wish to draw on other schools of thought to understand depressions, this does not affect the importance of Austrian insights to explain the boom.