Gustav Cassel

Karl Gustav Cassel ( born October 20, 1866 in Stockholm, † January 15, 1945 in Jönköping ) was a Swedish professor of economics. He first studied mathematics at Uppsala and then economics in Germany. He taught economics in Stockholm from 1903 until 1936. He was the founder of the Stockholm School together with Knut Wicksell and David Davidson. Cassel is a pioneer in the purchasing power parity theory. His students include Eli Heckscher, Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal.

Work

As John Maynard Keynes Gustav Cassel warned already in the 1920s before a return to the gold standard and a severe deflationary depression by lowering the price level corresponding to the gold parities before the war. He was in the early 1920s one of the most famous economists, which is why his warnings could not be readily ignored before the gold standard.

The Finance Committee of the League of Nations in 1929 had a gold commission appointed by the spring of 1932, discussed the problems with the gold standard of early summer 1930. Gustav Cassel said the global economic crisis forced by the gold standard deflationary policy and called for an expansionary monetary policy. The German member of the Gold Commission was convinced Deflationist Moritz Julius Bonn, who argued strongly against Cassels theses. The final report of the Gold Commission in 1932, which argued for the retention of the International Gold Standard, was not signed by Gustav Cassel as the only member. Although England and the countries of the sterling block had abandoned the gold standard in September 1931, the two Englishmen Henry Strakosch and Reginald Mant limited to the Belgians Albert -Edouard Janssen on a minority report and agreed on the basic attitude of the Gold Commission.

In his publications such as Postwar Monetary Stabilization (1928 ), The Crisis in the World's Monetary System ( 1932) and The Downfall of the Gold Standard (1936 ) and several presentations at this time Gustav Cassel treated the problems caused by the monetary policy problems of the economy and pleaded last for a completely independent from the gold standard system.

Works

• The Nature and Necessity of Interest, New York 1903, Macmillan.
• Theoretical Social Sciences, Leipzig 1918, CF winter.
• The World's Monetary Problem, London 1921, Constable and Co.
• The crisis in the world monetary system, 3 lectures held as Rhodes Memorial Lectures, Berlin 1933, Buchholz & Weisswange
• The collapse of the gold standard Stuttgart 1937, Kohlhammerstraße