Gottfried Haberler

Gottfried von Haberler (German: [ˈhaːbɐlɐ]; July 20, 1900 – May 6, 1995) was an Austrian-American economist. He worked in particular on international trade. One of his major contributions was reformulating the Ricardian idea of comparative advantage in a neoclassical framework, replacing the outdated labor theory of value with the modern opportunity cost concept.^[1]

Haberler was born in Austria-Hungary in 1900, and was educated in the Austrian School of economics. In 1936 he moved to the United States, joining the economics department at Harvard University. There he worked alongside Joseph Schumpeter.

Haberler's two major works were Theory of International Trade (1936) and Prosperity and Depression (1937).

He was President of the International Economic Association (1950–1953).

In 1957 the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade commissioned a report on the terms of trade for primary commodities, and Haberler was appointed Chairman. The report found that there was a decline in the terms of trade for primary producers, since 1955 commodity prices were said to have fallen by 5%, while industrial prices rose by 6%. Haberler's report seems to prefigure the report written by Raúl Prebisch for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964, but when Prebisch's report came out Haberler denounced it. His particular disagreement was with the idea that there was a systematic long-term (secular) decline in the terms of trade.

In 1971, Haberler left Harvard to become a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

Major works

• Der Sinn der Indexzahlen, 1927.
• "Irving Fisher's ‘Theory of Interest’", 1931, QJE. doi:10.2307/1883901
• "Money and the Business Cycle", in Wright (ed.), Gold and Monetary Stabilization, 1932
• Der Internationale Handel, 1933.
• The Theory of International Trade, 1936.
• "Mr Keynes' Theory of the Multiplier", 1936, ZfN doi:10.1007/BF01316189
• Prosperity and Depression: A theoretical analysis of cyclical movements, 1937. (this is the 3rd edition pub. in 1946)
• "The General Theory After Ten Years", in Harris (ed.), The New Economics, 1947.
• "The Market for Foreign Exchange and the Stability of the Balance of Payments", 1949, Kyklos. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6435.1949.tb00692.x
• "Some Problems in the Pure Theory of International Trade", 1950, EJ. JSTOR 2227052
• "The Pigou Effect Once More", 1952, JPE. JSTOR 1826454
• "Sixteen Years Later", in Lekachman (ed.), Keynes's General Theory, 1963.
• "Integration and Growth of the World Economy in perspective", 1964, AER. JSTOR 1810895
• Money in the International Economy, 1965.
• Inflation: Its causes and cures, 1960.
• "Monetary and Fiscal Policy for Economic Stability and Growth", 1967, Il Politico.
• "Theoretical Reflections on the Trade of Socialist Countries", 1968, in Brown and Neuberger (eds.), International Trade and Central Planning.
• Incomes Policy and Inflation, 1971.
• Economic Growth and Stability, 1974.
• Two Essays on the Future of the International Monetary Order, 1974.
• The World Economy and the Great Depression, 1976.
• The Problem of Stagflation: Reflection on the Microfoundation of Macroeconomic Theory and Policy, 1985.
• Essays of Gottfried Haberler (ed. A. Koo), 1985.
• The Liberal Economic Order, (ed. A. Koo), 1993.

References

Further reading

• Blair, Jennifer (2009). "Taking Aim at the New International Economic Order". In Mirowski, P.; Plehwe, D. The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press. pp. 347–385. ISBN 978-0-674-03318-4. 
• Kemp, Murray C. (2008). "Gottfried Haberler's Principle of Comparative Advantage". International Trade Theory: A Critical Review. London: Routledge. pp. 16–24. ISBN 978-1-134-07319-1. 

External links

• (English) Biography of Haberler from mises.org
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• (French) Gottfried Haberler on Wikibéral
• Gottfried Haberler at Goodreads