Gustav Cassel

Karl Gustav Cassel (20 October 1866 – 14 January 1945) was a Swedish economist and professor of economics at Stockholm University. Cassel was among the most prominent economists in the world in the interwar period. He made contributions to the study of value, monetary policy, and business cycles.

Cassel was influential in Swedish debates about central planning in the early 20th century.

Early life and education Cassel earned a doctorate in mathematics in 1895. After teaching for two years, he decided to study economics abroad in Germany and England. Lionel Robbins described Cassel in 1926 as "the most distinguished living exponent of analytical economics in Northern Europe." A 1945 obituary of Cassel in the American Economic Review described Cassel as the "dean of Swedish economists."

He also worked on the German reparations problem. He was a member of many committees dealing with matters of state in Sweden and devoted much labour to the creation of a better system of budget exposition and control (1905–21). He was one of the Swedish representatives at the International Chamber of Commerce meeting in London in 1921. He became a member of Svenska Vetenskapsakademien and correspondent for Sweden to the Royal Economic Society.

In addition to his books in Swedish, he published the following works in other languages: Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag (1900), The Nature and Necessity of Interest (1903), Theoretische Sozialökonomie (1919). His Memorandum on the World's Monetary Problems, published by the League of Nations for the International Financial Conference in Brussels in 1920, attracted widespread attention.

Some of his notable students include Nobel Prize in Economics laureates Bertil Ohlin and Gunnar Myrdal, and the future Moderate Party leader Gösta Bagge.