Professor Tibor Erdős, Széchenyi Prize-winning Hungarian economist, researcher on inflation and economic growth, former president of the Hungarian Economic Association, died on 6 September, in the 95th year of his life.
Tibor Erdős graduated in economics in 1952. After graduating, he became a lecturer in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Athens, and in 1969 he was appointed professor. In 1975, he started working as a scientific advisor at the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and was later appointed research professor. He retired in 1998.
In 1962 he received his Candidate’s degree in economics, and in 1972 his academic doctorate. In 1987 he was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and in 1993 a full member. Between 1990 and 1993 he was President of the Hungarian Economic Association, and between 1992 and 2000 he was a member of the Central Bank of Hungary. The Hungarian Economic Association awarded him the Economist Lifetime Achievement Award.
His initial research interests were the study of the determinants of economic growth, sustainable economic growth and the analysis of the capitalist business cycle. After 1975, his main research interests were the problems of Hungarian economic growth, the growth effects of economic policy, the theory of inflation and theoretical issues of monetary regulation.
He devoted much attention to the study of the economic feedback of inflation, which is important for the interest rate, capital repayments, investment interest and the fiscal balance, among other things. An important result is the analysis of the quantification and evolution of the “seigniorage”. His critical analysis of the inflation-targeting regime in monetary policy has been highly acclaimed: he has demonstrated that monetary policy strategy cannot be divorced from actual economic conditions. He later turned to the analysis of crisis management economic policy.
His memory is fondly preserved.