Franco Modigliani

A student of Jacob Marschak’s at the New School for Social Research, Franco Modigliani, in the model presented in his Ph.D. thesis (1944), was to provide the nucleus of the Neo-Keynesian Synthesis of post-war macroeconomics.

His further work went on to consolidate much of that research effort – whether in his life-cycle hypothesis for the consumption function (1953) or in the building of large macroeconometric models – such as his famous MPS model.

He also made several important contributions to theory of money and finance – notably, the fundamental Modigliani-Miller theory (1958) of corporate finance and the “Preferred Habitat” theory for the term structure of interest rates.

Modigliani was teaching at M.I.T. when he won the Nobel prize in 1985.

He died on September 25, 2003 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Major works of Franco Modigliani

Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest and Money, 1944, Econometrica
Utility Analysis and the Consumption Function: An interpretation of cross section data, with R. Brumberg, 1954, in Kurihara, editor, Post Keynesian Economics
The Cost of Capital, Corporation Finance and the Theory of Investment, 1958, with M.H. Miller, AER
New Developments on the Oligopoly Front, 1958, AER
Corporate Income Taxes and the Cost of Capital: A correction, with M.H. Miller, 1963, AER
The Life Cycle Hypothesis of Saving, with A. Ando, 1963, AER
The Monetary Mechanism and its Interaction with Real Phenomena, 1963, REStat
The Pasinetti Paradox in Neoclassical and More General Models, with Paul Samuelson, 1966, RES
Monetary Policy and Consumption, 1971, in Consumer Spending and Monetary Policy
The Monetarist Controversy or should we forsake stabilization policies, 1977, AER
Toward an Understanding of the Real Effects and Costs of Inflation, with S.Fischer 1979, WWA
Life Cycle, Individual Thrift and the Wealth of Nations, 1986, AER
The Role of Intergeneration Transfers and Life-Cycle Saving in the Accumulation of Wealth, 1988, JEP
The Debate over Stabilization Policies
The Supply of Money and the Control of Nominal Income with L. Papademos, 1990, in Friedman and Hahn, editors, Handbook of Monetary Economics – intro
The European economic recovery: a need for new policies?
Capital Markets: Institutions and Instruments, with Frank J. Fabozzi, 1996
Growth, investments, Public Deficit and Maastricht, 1996, Nobels for the Future
Technological Innovation and Labour Policies, 1998, Nobels for the Future
Business Expectations and Strategy for the United States of Europe with H. Askari, 1997, Stategy and Business
A Euro minus the D-Mark. with M. Baldassarri, 1997, Financial Times
Perils of unemployment, with G. LaMalfa, 1998, Financial Times
Letter to Financial Times, with G. LaMalfa, 1998
La banca che vogliamo, with G. LaMalfa, 1998, Corriere della sera
Il debito italiano? Non fa paura, with G. LaMalfa, 1998, Corriere della sera
Yes to the Euro, but Also to an Investment Plan for Jobs” with G. LaMalfa, 1998, Herald Tribune
A Solution to the Social Security Reform”, with M.L. Ceprini and A.S. Muralidhar, 2000