Karl Brunner, Monetarist

An introduction to some of Karl Brunner's many papers on monetary or macroeconomic topics provides a welcome opportunity to reconsider some of his contributions to theory, research, and policy in this area. Brunner's (1968) essay, that gave monetarism its name, concentrated on the role of money in the economy and on assessing monetary policy. Later, in "The Disarray in Macroeconomics," written in 1986 and reprinted here, he referred to monetarism as a "more or less unfortunate label" (1989, p. 197). Although Brunner was alert to new developments in economics, and he changed his interpretations and beliefs when analysis or facts warranted, his dissatisfaction with the term monetarism did not represent a belated recantation of his long-standing views.