Former students, friends and family establish the Robert A. Mundell Professorship of Economics, continuing his legacy at Columbia

Together, Columbia alumni and friends of the Department of Economics established a professorship to honor the late Robert A. Mundell, a towering figure in the department and international economics at large. Martín Uribe, an eminent scholar in international macroeconomics - the field in which Mundell made his greatest contributions - has been appointed as its first incumbent. 

“Robert Mundell was a giant in his field, and his pioneering ideas continue to shape our understanding of the modern economy,” said Amy Hungerford, Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “At Columbia, Bob was a dedicated teacher and mentor, and contributed greatly to the prominence and success of the Economics Department. We are grateful to his family, friends and students for establishing the Robert A. Mundell Professorship in Economics, which will ensure his legacy – and Columbia’s world-renowned scholarship and teaching in the field of economics – continues in perpetuity.”

Beginning in 1974, Dr. Mundell spent more than 40 years of his academic career at Columbia University where he is remembered fondly by his colleagues for spirited, cosmopolitan discussions on economic ideas and economic policy. Outside of Columbia, Mundell’s work had a deep impact on policy and the global economy.

Mundell’s work helped lay the groundwork for the establishment of the Euro, and his counsel was sought by the United Nations, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the governments of the U.S., Canada, and China, among others. To this day, Mundell’s models remain at the foundation of modern international economics. 

His ideas helped launch new directions in scholarship, including through the students he trained. They have taught and pursued these directions in their own work, and their achievements speak to the lasting impact of Mundell’s ideas and mentorship.

“The Department of Economics at Columbia has benefitted from quite a grand tradition of scholars and teachers in the area of international economics as befits our location in one of the world’s great centers of international business and finance. One of the most notable contributors to our reputation in that area, of course, was the late University Professor Robert A. Mundell”, confirmed Michael Woodford, John Bates Clark Professor of Political Economy and chair of the department. “His legacy continues [with] Uribe, the first Robert A. Mundell Professor of Economics, whose work in the field of open-economy macroeconomics directly extends many important themes in the pioneering work of Robert Mundell.” 

Since his appointment at Columbia in 2008, Martín Uribe has played a central role in teaching and advising in the area of macroeconomics, one of the core areas of the economics curriculum at all levels. In addition, Uribe has made important contributions to general monetary economics and to public finance.  

Uribe regularly teaches the core required course for undergraduate majors in Economics and in the doctoral program he teaches both in the PhD core sequence in Macroeconomics and in the field sequence for students intending to specialize in macroeconomics, translating these critical yet complicated areas of inquiry to undergraduates and to those for whom it will be part of their life’s work. As the inaugural Robert A. Mundell Professor of Economics, he will carry on the legacy of individual scholarship and mentorship that was characteristic of Mundell’s incredible career.