Karl Brunner (economist)

Karl Brunner (economist)
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Karl Brunner
Born    1916 : Died    1989 (aged 73) Rochester, New York
Nationality    Swiss
Institution    University of Rochester
Field    Monetary economics
School or tradition    Chicago School of Economics
Alma mater    University of Zurich
London School of Economics

Karl Brunner (1916 –1989) was a Swiss economist. His main interest in economics was on the nature of the money supply process and the philosophy of science and logic. He moved to the United States in 1943.

An award is given after his name in University of Rochester, William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration every year to the graduating non-US student with the highest record of academic achievement in the MBA program.

Karl Brunner was, with Milton Friedman and Allan Meltzer, the leader of the monetarist revolution of the Sixties and the Seventies. His work on asset markets placed the credit market, along with the money market, at center stage and focused on monetary policy as a primary source of instability. 

With Allan Meltzer he challenged the validity of the Keynesian paradigm and proposed an alternative model of the economy where the transmission of monetary impulses to the economy did not depend exclusively on the interest sensitivity of the demand for money but on the relative interest elasticities of the asset markets as well on variations in wealth.

An unexpected feature of the alternative model is that fiscal policy determines the price level. Brunner had a strong foundation in methodology and was an adherent of the empirical philosophy school. In addition to asset markets and macroeconomics, Brunner wrote extensively on the nature of man, the role of markets and institutions.

Finally, Brunner launched and managed the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking , the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Konstanzer Seminar on Monetary Theory and Monetary Policy, the Interlaken Conference on Analysis and Ideology, the Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, and the Shadow Open Market Committee (the last two with Allan Meltzer).

El profesor Brunner formaba parte de un grupo de economistas que aconsejaron a la Reserva Federal norteamericana, para controlar la inflación a principios de la década de los ochenta y para ejercer un control estricto sobre la oferta monetaria. Asesoró igualmente a la primera ministra británica, Margaret Thatcher, y a los gobiernos suizo y sueco. Nacido en Suiza, Brunner trabajó en la Banca Nacional Suiza hasta 1949, tras estudiar Ciencias Económicas en la universidad de Zúrich. Becado por la Fundación Rockefeller, estudió en las universidades de Harvard y Chicago, y fue profesor de numerosas universidades norteamericanas. Era catedrático de la universidad de Rochester y de la de Berna (Suiza).

Bibliography
•    Brunner, Karl, 1974. "Monetary Management, Domestic Inflation, and Imported Inflation." In Aliber, Robert Z., ed National Monetary Policies and the International Financial System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 179–208
•    Brunner, Karl, and Allan H. Meltzer (1971). "The Uses of Money in the Theory of an Exchange Economy." American Economic Review 61 (Dec.): 784–805.
•    _____, 1993. Money and the Economy: Issues in Monetary Analysis, Cambridge. Description. and chapter previews, pp. ix–x.
•    Brunner, Karl, The Selected Essays of Karl Brunner, Thomas Lys, ed., Edward Elgar.
1996. v. 1, Economic Analysis and Political Ideology. Description and chapter-preview links via scroll down.
1997. v. 2, Monetary Theory And Monetary Policy: Edward Elgar. Description.