Costantino Bresciani Turroni

Costantino Bresciani-Turroni (26 February 1882 – 7 December 1963) was an Italian economist and statistician. He was the last internationally known representative of Italy’s classical school of economics, which flourished in the early part of the century and continued to exert its influence between the world wars.

Costantino Bresciani Turroni
Born	(1882-02-26)26 February 1882 Verona, Kingdom of Italy
Died	7 December 1963(1963-12-07) (aged 81) Milan, Republic of Italy
Nationality	Italian
Spouse	Clara Lubrecht ​ (m. 1926)​
Parent(s)	Alessandro Bresciani (father) Erminia Turroni (mother)
Academic career
Field	Economics Political Economy Statistics Econometrics
Institution	University of Berlin University of Palermo University of Genoa University of Bologna University of Milan University of Cairo
School or tradition	classical liberalism
Alma mater	University of Padova

Biography

Costantino Bresciani-Turroni was born in Verona. He completed humanistic studies in high school and attended the law school at the University of Verona, specializing in statistics and economics.

He moved to Berlin for three years where he took an active part in the University of Berlin's laboratory of economy. In 1907, obtained the university teaching in statistics at Pavia, from 1909 taught at Palermo and then, until 1919, in Genoa. In 1925, he taught political economy at Bologna and signed the Anti-Fascist Intellectuals Manifesto. Then he taught in Milan and in 1927 in Cairo. In 1920 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs appointed him a member of the Italian delegation to the Reparation Commission and entered into force on the Dawes Plan in 1924, is financial advisor of the Agent General for the payment of reparations in Berlin. In 1931, he published the essay Le Vicende del Marco tedesco ("The vicissitudes of the German mark"— translated in 1937 as "The Economics of inflation").

In 1933, he resigned from ' Academy of Italy, the former Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, not to swear allegiance to the Fascist regime. In 1937 he went back to teach at the University of Milan, which he continued to do until 1957. In 1942 his Introduction to economic policy, where he is a fierce critic of state dirigisme, called for the abolition of exchange controls, the return to convertibility of the currency under a fixed exchange rate system, the re-establishment of market economy and free enterprise as a powerful engine of economic development.

In 1945 he became president of the Bank of Rome and in the same year he published the "program of economic and social liberalism" for the Liberal Party. From 1947 to 1951 was executive director of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. From August 1953 to January 1954 he was the Italian Minister of Foreign Trade. He organized the first Law on export credit insurance.

Research Interests

Economics and Statistics

Education

Degree in law, Padua, with a dissertation on Monetary circulation and economic development.

Academic Positions

Professor of Statistics at Universities of Padua, Milan (1909), Palermo (1909–1919), Genova (1919–1925). Professor of Political Economy at Bologna University (1925), Milan and The Cairo University (1927).

Honours and awards

Honorary member of American Economic Association, member of the Institut de France.

Known for

Pareto laws, Economic Indices

Publications

• Il primo anno di applicazione del piano Dawes, Riforma sociale, (1926)
• Bresciani-Turroni, Constantino (1931). "Le Vicende del Marco Tedesco". Annali di Economia. 7: V–XXIV, 1–596. JSTOR 23233016.
• The Economics Of Inflation: A Study Of Currency Depreciation In Post War Germany 1914-1923. Translated by Sayers, Millicent E. London: George Allen & Unwin. 1937 – via Internet Archive.
• On the Pareto’s Law, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, (1939);
• The Problem of the Cross-Rates of Exchange, Review of the Economic Conditions in Italy,(1948);
• Osservazioni sulla Teoria del moltiplicatore, Rivista Bancaria, XX,3, (1939);
• Considerazioni sui barometri economici, Giornale degli Economisti e Rivista di Statistica, (1928);
• Sui metodi per la misurazione del deprezzamento di una moneta cartacea, Rivista bancaria, (1923);
• Sul significato logico del coefficiente di correlazione, Giornale degli Economisti e Rivista di Statistica, (1914);
• Osservazioni critiche sul metodo del Wolf per lo studio della distribuzione dei redditi, Giornale degli Economisti e Rivista di Statistica, (1914);
• Sul carattere delle leggi statistiche, Giornale degli Economisti e Rivista di Statistica, (1910);
• Economic Policy for the Thinking Man. Translated by Fitzgerald, Edward. London, Edinburgh and Glasgow: William Hodge and Company Limited. 1950 – via Internet Archive.
• Liberalismo e politica economica, Collezione di Testi e di Studi, Il Mulino, Bologna, (2006).

Further reading

• "Prof. C. Bresciani Turroni". The Times: 12. 9 December 1963.
• "Bresciani Turroni si è spento a Milano". Corriere della Sera (in Italian): 2. 8 December 1963.
• Bini, Piero (2003). "Costantino Bresciani Turroni: the eulogy of monetary stability". In Samuels, Warren J. (ed.). European Economists of the Early 20th Century: Studies of neglected continental thinkers of Germany and Italy. Vol. 2. Edward Elgar online. pp. 1–36. doi:10.4337/9781035306053.00006. ISBN 978-1-0353-0605-3.
• Costabile, Lilia. "Costantino Bresciani Turroni - Il Contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Economia (2012)" (in Italian). Enciclopedia Treccani. Retrieved 19 May 2024.
• Gambino, Amedeo (1972). "BRESCIANI-TURRONI, Costantino". Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (in Italian). Vol. 14. Retrieved 21 May 2024.
• Kurz, Heinz D. (1998). "Costantino Bresciani Turroni". In Meacci, Ferdinando (ed.). Italian Economists of the 20th Century. Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar. pp. 134-162. ISBN 978-1-78254-120-2 – via Internet Archive.
• Samuelson, Paul A.; Nordhaus, William D. (1989). Economics (13 ed.). New York: McGraw Hill Book Company. p. 313. ISBN 978-0-07-054786-5 – via Internet Archive.
• Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1954). Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter (ed.). History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 858, 859, 1018, 1156 – via Internet Archive.
• Spiegel, Henry William (1988). "Bresciani-Turroni, Costantino (1882–1963)". In Durlauf, S.; Blume, L. (eds.). The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. London.: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 1–3. doi:10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_510-1. ISBN 978-1-349-95121-5.
• Tamagna, F. M. (1968). "Bresciani Turroni, Constantino [sic]". In Sills, David L. (ed.). International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan. pp. 149-150 – via Internet Archive.

External links

• Works by or about Costantino Bresciani Turroni at the Internet Archive