Robert Mundell, the 1999 Nobel Prize winner, passed away early this week. His main contributions to macroeconomics came from work he did while at the International Monetary Fund in the 1950s and 1960s, but they continued to have an influence long after. All undergraduate and graduate macroeconomics students in New Zealand will have come across the Mundell-Fleming model, which is important for understanding the relationship between exchange rates, interest rates, and output in a small open economy (like New Zealand). He is also credited as being a father of the Euro, and a key contributor to the 1980s economics movement known as 'supply-side economics' as his New York Times obituary notes:
He is known as the “father of the euro,” for his work that encouraged many European nations to give up their currencies to join a larger monetary union. And he provided intellectual grounding for lowering the top tax rates on the rich, whose advocates rallied under the banner of supply-side economics and won over many right-leaning politicians and policymakers in the United States, Britain and elsewhere while drawing the scorn of more progressive economists, who disputed the notion that cutting taxes for the wealthy was the best way to spur economic growth.
I hadn't realised his link to supply-side economics. As Mundell was a macroeconomist, my teaching and research doesn't really draw too much on his work. However, last week in my ECONS102 class we covered economic integration as part of the topic on international trade and globalisation. I guess there's a chance we wouldn't have the example of the Eurozone to use, if he and his students hadn't advocated so strongly in favour of it (or if politicians hadn't listened).
The Economist has a good obituary, as does the Washington Post. The story of him singing the Frank Sinatra song "My Way" after collecting his Nobel Prize is excellent, and as the obituaries note, is a good summary of his life and work. He will be missed.
[HT: Marginal Revolution]
No comments:
Post a Comment