Haberler, Gottfried

Born July 20, 1900, in Purkersdorf, near Vienna. American economist.

Haberler graduated from the University of Vienna in 1925. In the period 1928–36 he was a docent and then full professor at the University of Vienna, and in 1936 he became a professor at Harvard University. Haberler is known for his work on the theory of the cycle and on problems of international trade. With regard to economic theory, he has advocated a synthesis of different schools of bourgeois political economy. While generally favoring Keynesianism, he has criticized it in some particulars. For example, unlike J. M. Keynes, Haberler believes that the level of the interest rate depends more on the relationship of supply and demand for monetary capital than on the scale of monetary emissions. Haberler casts doubt on such important points of Keynesian theory as the relationship between the multiplier and the inclination to consume. According to Haberler, inflation is not caused by the internal patterns of development of modern state-monopoly capitalism but by mistaken economic policies of the state (hypertrophied state expenditures, inadequate level of taxation, and the like). In his review of two types of inflationary price rises (as a result of excess market demand or as a result of growth in production costs), Haberler analyzes methods of controlling inflation by using credit-monetary and fiscal levers, and he prefers the former because they are more flexible.