For some time now the world has heard talk of the euro’s demise and of a grim — and perhaps even well-deserved — collapse of the great European dream of monetary and economic union. For the euro’s legion of skeptics, the breakup of the euro is seen as the right solution to the fiscal and banking crises that have now dragged down the world economy for more than three years. Read the Financial Post article and Terence Corcoran’s interview with Robert Mundell.
“The Nobel prize is a big deal. In the academic world, it’s the ultimate prestige. My advice: Do your best to be profound—it is, after all, a roomful of profound thinkers—but don’t try too hard. See if you can make people laugh a little; I sang a verse from My Way, and that seemed to do the trick. And make it personal; I invited the entire room to my son’s wedding to break the ice.” Robert Mundell [BloomberBusinessweek]
The Nobel prize-winning economist on why Obama must lower corporate income tax, and on tough but essential adjustments in Europe. [More…]
After all these years, I have finally been able to sit down for an hour with Robert Mundell, the great theorist of currency unions and the godfather of the euro. “We’re in very serious danger. The world is in a depression in the Big Three of America, Europe and Japan, a mini-depression that we have not seen since the 1930s,” he said, speaking at the Lindau conference, where half the world’s Nobel economist are gathered on one tiny island with cobbled streets looking across Lake Constance to the Alps. Few economists inspire such devotion and fury as Professor Mundell. [The Telegraph]
Robert Mundell talks about the U.S. and European economies and Federal Reserve policy. He speaks from Lindau, Germany, with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television’s “Countdown.” Nobel laureate Robert Mundell said he doesn’t expect the U.S. or Europe to slide into recession again. “I think we’re in a double-dip slowdown, I don’t see a recession coming,” Mundell told Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television’s “On The Move” today from in Lindau, Germany. Mundell, who is professor of economics at Columbia University in New York, also said that the U.S. should cut its corporate taxes and make permanent the tax cuts enacted by former President George W. Bush to boost its economy [Bloomberg]
The Nobel laureate explains what is needed to save Europe’s single currency and calls for greater global coordination of monetary policies, in conversation with Robert Pringle.
[Central Banking Journal]
Professor Robert Mundell from Columbia University, the father of Euro and Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics in 1999, paid a 3-day academic visit to the Finance and Statistics College of Hunan University from June 20 to 22. On the afternoon of June 21, Professor Mundell delivered a speech entitled “Financial Crisis and the Prospect of International Monetary System” to about 600 teachers and students on North Campus of Hunan University.
According to Professor Mundell, since euro zone and US dollar zone have taken up 40 percent of the world economy, a stable exchange rate between euros and US dollars can promote the development of global economy. European Central Bank (ECB) and US Federal Reserve Bank can reach an agreement to intervene in the exchange rate in a certain range in order to avoid exchange rate fluctuation. He said that China can also join the mechanism of a stable exchange rate after the full convertibility of RMB under the guidance of a more prudent and consistent monetary policy. [source: Hunan University]
Bloomberg Television’s “Taking Stock.” Pimm Fox talks with Mark Grant, managing director at Southwest Securities Inc., and Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Mundell of Columbia University talk about the outlook for Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank, the role of gold in the global monetary system and the possibility that Greece may withdraw from the euro. (Source: Bloomberg) [More…]
100 Years of the American Economic Review:The American Economic Association (AEA) is pleased to announce the 100th anniversary of the American Economic Review (AER), first published in 1911. The AER, a general-interest economics journal with articles on a broad range of topics, is among the nation’s oldest and most respected scholarly journals in the economics profession. To commemorate the 100th anniversary, the American Economic Review centenary issue will include a paper on the 20 most important articles from the AER’s first 100 years of publishing.
A Theory of Optimum Currency Areas (1961), by Robert Mundell, was selected for the Top 20.
This paper explains that selecting the optimal geographic area for a single currency involves balancing two considerations. Macroeconomic stability is enhanced if the currency area has a high degree of internal factor mobility relative to the cross-border factor mobility. Taken by itself, this could lead to an excessively large number of currency areas, in the sense that there would be substantial transaction costs and valuation costs involved in making cross-area purchases. The optimal size of a currency area involves balancing these two considerations. Mundell discussed the potential application of this to the European countries some 30 years before the euro was introduced. [100 Years of the American Economic Review: The Top 20 Articles]
Hong Kong, Nov 19, 2010. Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Mundell says China’s currency has strengthened to the stage where it is “almost de facto convertible” and should be included in the international reserve basket held by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “The world’s theoretical currency is the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) of the IMF, a basket of major currencies that includes the US dollar, the euro, the pound sterling and the yen. China has not been in this and should be,” said Professor Mundell, predicting that the renminbi is likely to be central to the IMF SDR review in 2011. [MarketWatch.com]
Global monetary relations are in disarray. Exchange rates fluctuate wildly among the world’s major trade partners, spawning talk of protectionism and a currency war. Gold is soaring as the dollar slides, and economists debate whether the biggest threat to U.S. recovery is deflation or inflation. We need a giant of economics to help explain all this and recommend a remedy. Where in the world is Robert Mundell when you need him? As it turns out, Mr. Mundell—the Columbia University professor who advocated the hard-money, low-tax policy mix that broke stagflation in the early 1980s, and who received the Nobel Prize … [Wall Street Journal]
New York, May 2010. Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Mundell said debt restructuring may be “inevitable” in parts of the euro area and Steve Hanke, the architect of currency regimes from Argentina to Estonia, warned a Greek default may become unavoidable.
Mundell, who won the economics prize in 1999, predicted debt restructuring for “one or two” euro nations within five years. Hanke of Johns Hopkins University said Greece’s “death spiral” will end in default if debt obligations can’t be renegotiated. [Bloomberg.com]
New York, February 2010. Nobel laureate Robert Mundell talks with Bloomberg’s Sara Eisen about the euro. Mundell, a Columbia University professor, said the European Union should cap gains of its currency so that it doesn’t exceed $1.40. Mundell also discusses Greece’s fiscal problems, the dollar and European monetary policy. [Bloomberg.com]
Beijing, November 2009. The Nobel Laureates Beijing Forum 2009 is opened in Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 10, 2009. Four Nobel laureates in economics and other world famous experts were invited to the forum to discuss topics on financial reconstruction and economic revitalization. [Sina]
Sao Paulo, Brazil, November 2009. Joseph Stiglitz, Robert Mundell, Edward Prescott discuss alternatives to the crisis and Brazil’s role. With the theme “Global Crisis and Alternatives for Reconstruction of the Economy”, the forum provides an overview of the current crisis. Rather than address the causes of the current turmoil, which began with the bursting of U.S. housing bubble and has become a serious global financial crisis, the participants analyze what are the challenges to overcome it. [More…]
St. Petersburg, Russia, June 2009. The US is the biggest economy in the world, and if the blame for the global economic crisis is put on the US, it is put on the centre of the financial world – it is the same thing. The sub-prime mortgage crisis is certainly an American phenomenon that created the major problems, believes Robert Mundell, Professor of Economics at Columbia University and a Nobel laureate who gave an exclusive interview to RT at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum. [More…]
Nobel Laureate Robert Mundell, known as the father of the Euro and Supply Side Economics, shares his thoughts on the influence of currency policies on the financial crisis. [More…]
Ankara, Turkey, April 2008. The Second Annual Conference on Current Issues in Economic Governance was held at Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey, April 2-3 , 2008. The purpose of the conference is to bring together leading research economists from among business leaders, government officials, academics, economic development practitioners and researchers.
Robert Mundell’s speech on Imported Inflation and the Future of the Dollar.
Manilla, November 2007. Professor Mundell lectured on “Economic development by fitting globalization into the national development strategy” and on “Remaking the international exchange rate system: The optimum currency area approach to a global currency” on November 15 at De La Salle University in Manila [De La Salle University]
Honk Kong, June 2007. As the audience at the Asia Society’s May gala dinner in Hong Kong sips their coffee, the moderator allows one more question from the audience for Nobel economics laureate Robert Mundell. A Chinese gentleman stands to ask how much longer the U.S. dollar would remain the world’s reserve currency. [Far East Economic Review]
Robert Mundell won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1999 and is widely known for his theoretical work on the development of the euro, the interplay among exchange rates, inflation, and economic growth, and his advocacy of supply-side economics. He also has developed some interesting views on the startling economic rise of China.The Columbia University economics professor spoke with Asia Correspondent Frederik Balfour on May 4, during a swing through Hong Kong, about how Beijing should deal with China’s burgeoning global trade surplus and the dangers of allowing the yuan to appreciate too rapidly. Here is an edited version of their conversation. [Business Week]
Beijing, September 2006. Robert Mundell gave a report entitled “The Evolution of the International Monetary System and Its Relationship with China” at the Capital University of Economics and Business in Beijing. [More…]
Beijing, May 2006. Robert Mundell will be taking part in the three-day Nobel Laureates Beijing Forum 2006, sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Chinese-born Lee Tsung-dao, winner of the 1957 Nobel prize for physics, Robert Huber and Hartmut Michel, who shared the 1988 chemistry prize, Ferid Murad and Louis Ignarro, who shared the 1998 medicine prize, and Aaron Ciechanover, winner of the 2004 chemistry prize, will also attend the forum. [More…]
Bologna, September 2006. Robert Mundell was made Doctor Honoris Causa in the Political Economy of Markets at the University of Bologna, the oldest university in Europe. [More…]
Finance and Development, a quarterly magazine of the IMF, interviews Robert Mundell. He speaks to F&D about exchange rates, the euro, his work in China, and his castle in Italy. [International Monetary Fund]
Changsha, China, October 2005. Nobel Prize laureate Robert A. Mundell was named by elite Hunan University, one of the oldest colleges of higher learning in China, an honorary professor. Hunan University is best known for its Yuelu Academy, founded in 976, where the cream of Chinese culture, including Confucian classics, courtesy, writing and calligraphic skills, are taught.
Los Angeles, USA, April 2002. Robert Mundell will present the 2001-2002 Arnold C. Harberger Lecture on Economic Development for the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA. One of the most important events of the year at UCLA, the lectures provide a special forum for outstanding students of international economics and policy to present their thoughts and research on issues like those that Arnold C. Harberger himself has addressed.
Professor Robert Mundell urges gold convertibility for the euro, the currency which he fathered, as well as for the dollar. This is a major step forward. Thought leaders are abandoning “old monetarism,” which was vainly fixated on quantity. [Source: