MUNDELL, ROBERT (born 1932), winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1999, Professor of Economics at Columbia University (New York). He is known as the creator of the theory of optimal currency zones. He received well-deserved recognition for his contribution to the development of the global economy, showing how international financial flows can affect the ability of countries to manage their economies by changing interest rates of tax and budgetary policies. Mundell outlined his thoughts on this in a paper published back in the early 1960s. Mundell was one of the first to come up with the idea of drastic tax cuts as an incentive for economic development. His views attracted the attention of conservative politicians in the late 1970s, and the scientist found himself at the forefront of the struggle in the US administration between those who feared that an economic crisis would break out due to a huge budget deficit, and those who believed that tax cuts would serve as a medicine that would improve the economy. Many of Mundell's colleagues and prominent politicians believe that his work was the foundation on which the movement to reduce tax rates was based. And in 1980, Ronald Reagan became a staunch supporter of Mundell's views, which significantly affected the economic policy of his administration during the years when he was president.

Mundell was born in 1932 in Kingston (Ontario, Canada). In 1953, he received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of British Columbia. He graduated from the London School of Economics in 1956 and received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1956-1957, he completed an internship in political economics at the University of Chicago. He has taught at Stanford University and the Johns Hopkins Bologna Center for the Development of International Studies. In 1961, he joined the International Monetary Fund. From 1966 to 1971, he was professor of economics at the University of Chicago and editor of the Journal of Political Economy. From 1965 to 1975 he worked as a visiting professor at the Center for International Studies in Geneva, in 1997-1998 – at the Johns Hopkins Bologna Center at the Paul H. Nice School for the Development of International Studies.

Mundell is the author of more than 100 articles published in scientific journals, eight monographs, among them – Debt, Deficit and Economic Efficiency (Debt, Deficits and Economic Performance, 1991); Building the New Europe (1992); China: Inflation and Growth (1996). He has been awarded many awards, most recently the American Economic Association Award for Outstanding Achievements in 1997. In 1998 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.