Robert Mundell
Robert Mundell
Robert Alexander Mundell, CCis a Nobel Prize-winning Canadian economist. Currently, he is a professor of economics at Columbia University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionEconomist
Date of Birth24 October 1932
CountryCanada
fell love
As an undergraduate at UBC in Canada, I fell in love with economic theory. It was the right choice for me.
forces
Monetary discipline forces fiscal discipline on the politicians as well.
banks believed central good rigid theory
I have never believed that central banks should have rigid inflation targeting. That is not a good thing to stabilize. There is nothing in economic theory to back this.
suddenly
It's a lethal thing to suddenly raise taxes.
decided james school
I decided to go to the London School of Economics to write my thesis for MIT, under James Meade, Nobelist with Bertil Ohlin in 1977.
education good owe
How much we owe to good teachers, good education, and good advice!
high lots school teen took
I took high school very casually. There was Teen Town, chess, tennis, boxing, running. Lots of things going on.
inside less open states system united
The United States can't keep a completely open system if the rest of the world is less open. The United States may have to take a leaf out of the book of Japan, China, and Germany, and have protectionism inside the system.
capital chapters early five james mention mit money school theory wrote
In my early days, I wrote my dissertation for MIT at the London School of Economics, really under James Meade, but my dissertation was five chapters on the theory of capital movement, but it didn't mention money.
competition offer public votes
The public is looking for free lunches, and the political competition for votes makes the politicians offer them free lunches.
associated fixed gone korean level nearly ounce price secular three time vietnam war
The price of gold was fixed at $35 an ounce in 1934, but by the time the U.S. got through the Korean War, the Vietnam war, with all the associated secular inflation, the price level had gone up nearly three times.
becoming broke central currency dollar dominant economy fairly gold happened problem standard war
The problem started before World War I. The gold standard was working fairly well. But it broke down because of the war and what happened in the 1920s. And then the U.S. started to become so dominant in the world, with the dollar becoming the central currency after the 1930s, the whole world economy shifted.