Contributor(s): Dr Eamonn Butler | The Nobel economist F A Hayek was the arch-rival of Keynes in the 1930s and 1940s. Some today say that he has the better explanation of boom-bust cycles and how to end them. His prescription is the exact opposite of Keynes – no big infrastructure spending, no keeping things afloat with quantitative easing and cheap credit, but leaner government, lower taxes, less regulation and more freedom for businesses and individuals alike. In this lecture, Hayek biographer Dr Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute explains Hayek's view that a prosperous economy and a creative society are better achieved by individual freedom than by state planning. This event marks his latest book Friedrich Hayek: The ideas and influence of the libertarian economist. Eamonn Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute, rated one of the world's leading policy think-tanks. He has degrees in economics, philosophy and psychology, gaining a PhD from the University of St Andrews in 1978 and an honorary DLitt from Heriot-Watt University in 2012. During the 1970s he worked on pensions and welfare issues for the US House of Representatives, and taught philosophy in Hillsdale College, Michigan, before returning to the UK to help found the Adam Smith Institute. Eamonn is author of books on the pioneering economists Milton Friedman, F A Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Adam Smith, and on the Austrian and Public Choice schools of economics. He is also co-author of Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls, and of a series of books on intelligence testing. Eamonn contributes to the leading UK print and broadcast media on current issues, and his recent popular books The Best Book on the Market, The Rotten State of Britain and The Alternative Manifesto have attracted considerable attention. Allister Heath is Editor of City A.M. Prior to taking over at City A.M. in March 2008, he was Editor of The Business magazine, a publication he joined as economics correspondent and leader-writer when it was a Sunday newspaper in 2002. During those years, he was also a regular contributor to The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday. While at The Business, he also served a two year term as a Wincott visiting professor of financial journalism at the University of Buckingham. Heath was born and schooled in France. He moved to the UK to attend university, graduating with a BSc in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science and an M.Phil in economics from Hertford College, Oxford University.