Gottfried Haberler
Gottfried Haberler (1901-1995) was an economist. He worked in particular on international trade.
Haberler was born in Austria in 1901, and was educated in the Austrian School of economics. In 1936 he moved to the United States, joining the economics department at Harvard. Here he worked alongside Joseph Schumpeter.
Haberler's two major works were Theory of International Trade (1936) and Prosperity and Depression (1937). His work on international trade theory was complemented by several articles which sought to place the theory of comparative advantage on both a positive and normative basis. His rewriting of the theory of comparative advantage in terms of opportunity cost, rather than real cost, led to a long debate with Jacob Viner.
In 1957 GATT commissioned a report on the terms of trade for primary commodities, and Haberler was appointed Chairman. The report found that there was a decline in the terms of trade for primary producers, since 1955 commodity prices were said to have fallen by 5%, whilst industrial prices rose by 6%. Haberler's report seems to prefigure the report written by Prebisch for UNCTAD in 1964, but when Prebisch's report came out Haberler denounced it. His particular disagreement was with the idea that there was a systematic long-term (secular) decline in the terms of trade.
In 1971, Haberler left Harvard to become a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute together with his old schoolmate Fritz Machlup. His neo-liberal policy prescriptions became the hallmark of that institution.
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