Gottfried Haberler American economist, Austrian by birth Date of Birth: 20.07.1900 Country: USA

Biography of Gotfried Haberler

Gotfried Haberler was an American economist of Austrian descent, primarily known for his work in the field of international trade. He was born on July 20, 1900, in Purkersdorf, Austria, a small town near Vienna. Haberler attended the University of Vienna and was part of the Austrian School of economics.

In 1936, Haberler immigrated to the United States and joined the faculty of Harvard University as an economics professor. During his time at Harvard, he was colleagues with another prominent economist of Austrian origin, Joseph Schumpeter. Haberler's most notable works include "Theory of International Trade" (1936) and "Prosperity and Depression: A theoretical analysis of cyclical movements" (1937). He was one of the first economists to extensively study productivity growth and the universal benefits of "free" or unrestricted international trade in the context of modern subjective theory of value.

Haberler also developed an approach to analyzing business cycles that was based on a synthesis of "pre-Keynesian" theories and emphasized the causal role of political manipulations of the money supply. He was known worldwide as an influential expert in these areas and consistently advocated against protectionism and inflationary programs, which were supported by many of his fellow economists as well as governments of less developed countries and the post-war mixed economy of the West.

After leaving Harvard in 1971, Haberler became a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a non-governmental analytical center in Washington, D.C., where he worked until his final years. He also served as the President of the International Economic Association from 1950 to 1953 and headed the American Economic Association in 1963.

In his early years in Austria during the 1920s and 1930s, Haberler was a member of the famous Mises-Kreis, a special circle of selected economists, sociologists, and philosophers who regularly participated in private seminars organized by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, who later also emigrated to the United States. The influence of Mises and the Austrian School was evident in Haberler's theoretical works, although in his later works, he energetically rejected certain aspects of Austrian theory. Therefore, from an economic worldview perspective, Haberler is often, albeit imprecisely, considered a proponent of monetarist theory or even a "right-wing Keynesian," while his connection to the Austrian School of economics is overlooked.

In his famous work, sponsored and first published by the League of Nations in 1937, Haberler conducted a comprehensive review of existing literature on business cycle theory and formulated his own "synthetic" explanation of the causes and nature of cyclical phenomena.

In the early 1950s, Haberler abandoned his earlier support for the international gold standard with national currencies and began advocating for a system of national currencies linked together through flexible exchange rates. However, in the early 1970s, he broke ties with the monetarists and identified the relentless pressure from unions to raise wages above market levels as the primary cause of inflationary recessions.

Gotfried Haberler passed away on May 6, 1995, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 94.