Alexander Mahr

Alexander Mahr (born January 31, 1896 in Poppitz near Znaim , † April 14, 1972 in Vienna ) was an Austrian economist and professor of economics at the University of Vienna .

Studies and career

After finishing high school in Vienna, he completed his studies in Scandinavian philology, German and philosophy in 1921 with a doctorate to become a Dr. phil. at the University of Vienna. In 1920 he was a scholarship holder at the University of Gothenburg. Then, under the influence of Friedrich von Wieser , he began to study economics, which he obtained in March 1925 with a doctorate to become a Dr. rer. pole. at the University of Vienna. From 1926 to 1928 he received a Rockefeller scholarship for postgraduate studies in economics in the USA and England.

In 1930 he submitted his habilitation at the University of Vienna with “Investigations on the Theory of Interest” (Jena 1929), which dealt with the work of Böhm-Bawerk. From 1930 to 1938 he was a research assistant to Hans Mayer (1879–1955), the chair of Carl Menger and Friedrich von Wieser. In 1936 he was awarded the title of Associate Professor. During the years 1938 to 1950 Mahr was scientific advisor at the Austrian Central Statistical Office, where he a. a. played a major role in the preparation of the national accounts.

His political attitude was not conducive to Mahr during the time of the corporate state or the National Socialist regime, so that it was not until 1950 that he was able to follow his teacher Hans Mayer as full professor of political economy in the chair previously held by Carl Menger and Friedrich von Wieser.

In 1953 and 1954, Mahr spent several months researching in Cambridge (GB) and Cambridge (Mass / USA). From 1956 he was chairman of the National Economic Society in Vienna and vice-president of the Austrian Institute for Economic Research, later a council member of the International Economic Association, he was also editor of the Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie in Vienna, and co-editor of Metroeconomica and Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali . From 1961 to 1967 Mahr was a senator of the law and political science faculty, in 1971 he was made honorary senator of the University of Vienna. Since 1963 he was a real member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In 1966 he received the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, 1st Class, and in 1971 the Gold Medal of Honor of the Federal Capital Vienna . On the occasion of his 70th birthday, the commemorative publication Unity and Diversity in the Social Sciences was published (Vienna 1966, Ed. W. Weber). He died on April 14, 1972 in Vienna. His grave is in the local cemetery of Langenzersdorf (2103)

Effect and classification

Alexander Mahr was the last classical representative of the Austrian school of marginal utility theory founded by Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk in economics. However, he was more critical of a rigid mathematical definition of the marginal utility level. In the later years he turned to socio-political problems.

Throughout his work, Alexander Mahr tried to preserve the Austrian School of Marginal Utility of Economics of MENGER, BÖHM-BAWERK and WIESER, but also of SAX and PHILIPPOVICH, as an independent research direction and despite the unprejudiced openness to the development of other, competing "directions" to maintain the principles of the orientation that it recognizes as fundamentally correct. His economic-theoretical, but also numerous economic-political works show the typical “Austrian” psychological elements, with which he ...... as a real continuation of the work especially v. WIESERS and v. BÖHM-BAWERKS has confirmed. Mahr's monetary theory and foreign trade studies, on the other hand, are already designed macroeconomically and are therefore aggregatively oriented. Last but not least ... his intensive engagement with one of the Keynesian instruments, the multiplier, should be emphasized. It deserves special mention that the textbook “Volkswirtschaftslehre” penned by Mahr has, after decades, again provided an overall presentation of economic theory from an “Austrian perspective”. It also made it the most important results of his own research to a general public accessible and yet avoided any school-related one-sidedness (From: Wilhelm Weber. Alexander Mahr obituary (including publication list), in: Almanac of the Austrian Akad d Wiss, 122. Jg.... . (1972), Vienna 1973, 332-340, here: 336).

Publications (selection)

Books

• Monetary Stability, Chicago 1933.
• Economics. Introduction to the understanding of economic relationships, Vienna 1948.
• Economics. 2nd, significantly expanded edition, Vienna 1959.
• The unresolved prosperity. Problems of modern industrial society, Berlin 1964.
• Collected treatises on economic theory, Berlin 1967.

Articles (choice of 60 articles)

• The law of the marginal utility level in the light of criticism, in: New contributions to economic theory. FS for H. Mayer, Vienna 1949.
• On the criticism of the theory of the marginal utility level (a reply to Wilhelm Krelle), in: Jahrb. F. National economist u. Statistics 165 (1953).

Web links

• Literature by and about Alexander Mahr in the catalog of the German National Library