- Ph.D., Princeton University, 1967
George M. von Furstenberg
Rudy Professor Emeritus, Economics
Rudy Professor Emeritus, Economics
George M. von Furstenberg was born in the western part of Germany in middle of World War II. In 1961 he arrived as a 19-year old immigrant alone in New York to make it the hard way --study, work, and no play -- first at Columbia Universitys School of General Studies and then at Princeton University from which he received a Ph.D. in economics in 1967. He had become a U.S. citizen already one year earlier. Since then, several years of work at the International Monetary Fund (Division Chief, 1978-1983) and at various U.S. government agencies including the U.S. Presidents Council of Economic Advisers (Senior Staff Economist, 1973-76), the Department of State (1989-1990), and the National Science Foundation (NSF, Program Director - Economics, 2006-08) have alternated with his academic pursuits. In 2000 he was president of the North American Economics and Finance Association, whom he previously had served as president-elect and program chair. He has had Fulbright and other research and teaching fellowships to both Poland and Canada and has been featured in successive editions of Whos Who in America starting with the 44th edition (1986), in the 1999 edition of Who's Who in Economics, and in Who's Who in the World starting with the 23rd edition (2006).
A prolific writer and frequent editor, his interests are policy-oriented, broad, and international, with a core in open-economy macroeconomics and international finance. At Indiana University, he became a full professor in 1973, a titled (J.H. Rudy) professor in 1983, and emeritus in 2006. In 2000-2003 he was the inaugural Robert Bendheim Chair in Economic and Financial Policy at Fordham University's Graduate School of Business Administration, Lincoln Center. He remains deeply committed to his former students and their professional success. Currently active research topics are indicated by the titles of his two most recent articles, published in 2009, "U.S. Executive-Branch Transgressions in the Depth of the 2007-2009 Financial Crisis" and "International Financial Services: Location Preferences and Economies," and there is more work related to the Financial Crisis to come.
His latest book (with Michael K. Ulan) is Learning from the Worlds Best Central Bankers (Kluwer 1998). A co-edited manuscript on Monetary Unions and Hard Pegs: Effects on Trade, Financial Development, and Stability was published in 2004 (Oxford University Press).
His latest book is a comprehensive description and analysis of Contingent Convertibles [CoCos]: A Potent Instrument for Financial Reform. The book was published by World Scientific - Now Publishers Series in Business, Vol. 5, in 2014.