Gottfried Haberler

Gottfried von Haberler (German: [ˈhaːbɐlɐ]; July 20, 1900 – May 6, 1995) was an Austrian-American economist.^[1][2][3] He worked in particular on international trade. One of his major contributions was reformulating the Ricardian idea of comparative advantage in a neoclassical framework, abandoning the labor theory of value for an opportunity cost concept.^[4]

Gottfried Haberler
Born	(1900-07-20)July 20, 1900 Purkersdorf, Austria-Hungary
Died	May 6, 1995(1995-05-06) (aged 94) Washington, D.C.
Academic career
Institution	Harvard University
Field	International economics
School or tradition	Austrian School
Alma mater	University of Vienna
Doctoral advisor	Othmar Spann Ludwig von Mises
Doctoral students	Richard E. Caves
Influences	Friedrich von Wieser

Early life

Haberler was born in Austria-Hungary in 1900, and was educated in the Austrian School of economics, after which he served at the Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations.^[5]: 476 In 1936 he moved to the United States, joining the economics department at Harvard University. There he worked alongside Joseph Schumpeter.

Academic Career and Views

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 echo the report written by Raúl Prebisch in 1949 as well as Hans Singer in 1950. However, when a second report by Prebisch or the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) came out in 1964, 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.

Among other things, Haberler is credited with developing the theory of opportunity cost, which was pioneered by the Englishman John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) and the Austrian Friedrich von Wieser (1851–1926) further developed it. ^[6][7]

Haberler died from Parkinson's disease in 1995.^[8]

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

1. Blaug, Mark, ed. (1986). "HABERLER, Gottfried". Who's Who in Economics: A Biographical Dictionary of Major Economists 1700-1986 (2nd ed.). Wheatsheaf Books Limited. p. 351-352 – via Internet Archive.
2. Chipman, J.S. (2008). "Haberler, Gottfried (1900–1995)". In Durlauf, S.N.; Blume, L.E. (eds.). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. London: Macmillan Palgrave. pp. 812–813.
3. Boianovsky, Mauro; Trautwein, Hans-Michael (2006). "Haberler, the League of Nations, and the Quest for Consensus in Business Cycle Theory in the 1930s". History of Political Economy. 38 (1): 45–89. doi:10.1215/00182702-38-1-45. ISSN 0018-2702.
4. Baldwin, Robert E. (1982). "Gottfried Haberler's Contributions to International Trade Theory and Policy". Quarterly Journal of Economics. 97 (1): 141–48. doi:10.2307/1882631. JSTOR 1882631.
5. Patricia Clavin and Jens-Wilhelm Wessels (November 2005), "Transnationalism and the League of Nations: Understanding the Work of Its Economic and Financial Organisation", Contemporary European History, 14:4, Cambridge University Press: 465–492, retrieved 2023-12-20
6. Quiggin, J. (2015, May 26). Opportunity Cost: A Fabian Idea?
7. Haberler, G. (1968). Theory of International Trade.
8. "Economist Gottfried Haberler, A Defender of Free Trade, Dies". The Washington Post. 9 May 1995. Retrieved May 14, 2020.

Further reading

• Blair, Jennifer (2009). "Taking Aim at the New International Economic Order". In Mirowski, P.; Plehwe, D. (eds.). 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

• Bradsher, Keith (9 May 1995). "Gottfried Haberler, Resolute Free Market Economist, Dies at 94". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
• (in English) Biography of Haberler from mises.org
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Works by or about Gottfried Haberler at Internet Archive
• Gottfried Haberler (in German) from the online-archive of the Österreichischen Mediathek