Robert Mundell

Robert Alexander Mundell CC (October 24, 1931 – April 4, 2021) was a Canadian economist. He was a professor of economics at Columbia University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1999 for his pioneering work in monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas.^[1] Mundell is known as the "father" of the euro,^[6] as he laid the groundwork for its introduction through this work and helped to start the movement known as supply-side economics.^[7] Mundell was also known for the Mundell–Fleming model and Mundell–Tobin effect.

Early life

Mundell was born Robert Alexander Mundell on October 24, 1931, in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, to Lila Teresa (née Hamilton) and William Mundell.^[8][9] His mother was an heiress while his father was a military officer and taught at the Royal Military College of Canada.^[10] He spent his early years in a farm in Ontario and moved to British Columbia with his family when his father retired at the end of World War II. He completed his high school education in British Columbia where he was known to have participated in boxing and chess events during this time.^[10]

He earned his

In 2006 Mundell earned an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Waterloo.^[11] He was Professor of Economics and Editor of the Journal of Political Economy at the University of Chicago from 1965 to 1972, Chairman of the Department of Economics at the University of Waterloo 1972 to 1974 and since 1974 he had been Professor of Economics at Columbia University.^[12] He also held the post of Repap Professor of Economics at McGill University.^[1][13]

Career

From 1974 until his death he had been a professor in the Economics department at Columbia University; and from 2001 he had held Columbia's highest academic rank –

• Theoretical work on optimum currency areas^[14]
• Contributions to the development of the euro^[14]
• Helped start the movement known as supply-side economics^[15]
• Historical research on the operation of the gold standard in different eras
• Predicted the inflation of the 1970s
• Mundell–Fleming model
• Mundell–Tobin effect

International monetary flows

Mundell is best known in politics for his support of

• Discipline under the
  Federal Reserve
  than to the discipline of gold.
• Demand side fiscal policy would be ineffective in restraining central banks under a floating exchange rate system.
• Single currency zones relied, therefore, on similar levels of price stability, where a single monetary policy would suffice for all.

His analysis led to his conclusion that it was a disagreement between Europe and the United States over the rate of inflation, partially to finance the Vietnam War, and that Bretton Woods disintegrated because of the undervaluing of gold and the consequent monetary discipline breakdown. There is a famous point/counterpoint over this issue between Mundell and Milton Friedman.^[18]

This work later led to the creation of the euro and his prediction that leaving the Bretton Woods system would lead to "stagflation" so long as highly progressive income tax rates applied. In 1974, he advocated a drastic tax reduction and a flattening of income tax rates.

Mundell, though lionized by some conservatives, has many of his harshest critics from the right: he denied the need for a fixed gold-based currency or currency board ^{[citation needed]} (he still often recommended this as a policy in hyperinflationary environments) and he was both a fiscal and balance of payments deficit hawk. He is well known for stating that in a floating exchange rate system, expansion of the money supply can come about only by a positive balance of payments.

In 2000, Mundell recommended that

Robert Mundell was considered the "father of the euro" for his early work encouraging a European monetary union.^[6][20] Starting in the 1960s, Mundell supported the constitution of a European Economic and Monetary Union and pushed for the creation of the euro.^[21]

In 2000, he predicted that before 2010, the eurozone would expand to cover 50 countries, while the U.S. dollar would spread throughout Latin America, and much of Asia would look towards the yen.^[22] Such predictions have proved highly inaccurate.

In his 2012 article "Robert Mundell, evil genius of the euro", Greg Palast affirms that Mundell advocated for the euro because its implementation would have the effect of removing democratic control over monetary policy. As such, when a crisis hits, eurozone governments would not be able to stimulate the economy by creating money, as is prescribed by Keynesian economics. They would thus be forced to resort to other means to curtail unemployment, such as deregulating businesses, privatizing state industries, cutting taxes, and weakening the social safety net.^[23]

In 2014, Mundell voiced his opposition to proposals of a fiscal union between the European states. He declared that "it would be insane to have a central European authority that controls all the taxes and duties of the states ... controlled in the Union. This transfer of sovereignty is far too big". He also voiced his opposition to the prospect that countries could be liable for other countries' debt.^[24]

Awards and honours

Mundell was awarded the

Mundell also appeared on Bloomberg Television many times, mainly speaking on euro-related topics and other European financial issues.^[35]

Mundell has also appeared on

Mundell was married to Velerie Natsios-Mundell. The couple had a son and lived in Monteriggioni, Siena, Tuscany, Italy, starting the late 1970s. He had two sons and a daughter from an earlier marriage. One of his sons had predeceased him in a car accident.^[9] Mundell died on April 4, 2021, from cholangiocarcinoma, a cancer of the bile duct.^[38][39][40] He was aged 89.^[9]

See also

• Redundancy problem - suggested by Robert Mundell.
• List of economists
• Acmetal
• List of University of Waterloo people

References

Selected publications

• Mundell, Robert A (1968). Man and economics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  OCLC 167951
  .
• Mundell, Robert A (1971). Monetary theory; inflation, interest, and growth in the world economy. Pacific Palisades, Calif.: Goodyear Pub. Co.
  ISBN 0876205864
  .
• Conference on the New International Monetary System; Mundell, Robert A; Polak, J. J; Fleming, J. Marcus; International Monetary Fund; Columbia University, eds. (1977). The new international monetary system. New York: Columbia University Press.
  ISBN 0231043686
  .
• Mundell, Robert A (1968). International economics. New York: Macmillan.
  OCLC 239387
  .

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Robert Mundell.

• Robert Mundell's homepage
• Single Global Currency Association – Bretton Woods 2024 Archived June 28, 2019, at the Wayback Machine
• his analysis of monetary and fiscal policy under different exchange rate regimes and his analysis of optimum currency areas.
• Economista canadiense. Profesor en la Columbia University de New York.^{[permanent dead link]}
• The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences
• The Kiel Institute Global Economy Prize
• Robert Mundell on Nobelprize.org
• "Robert A. Mundell (1932– )". The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.
  Library of Economics and Liberty (2nd ed.). Liberty Fund
  . 2008.
• IDEAS/RePEc
• Works by or about Robert Mundell at Internet Archive

Awards
Preceded by Amartya Sen	Laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics 1999	Succeeded by Daniel L. McFadden