Carl Menger

Carl Menger was born on February 23, 1840, in Neu-Sandez in Galicia (then part of the Austrian Empire). After studying law at the Universities of Prague and Vienna and earning his doctorate in jurisprudence at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Menger worked as an economic journalist and civil servant in Vienna.

In 1871, Menger published his epochal Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre (Principles of Economics). Independently of William Stanley Jevons and Léon Walras, Menger demolished the classical labor theory of value, proving that economic value is subjective and determined by marginal utility. As professor at the University of Vienna and personal tutor to Crown Prince Rudolf, he founded the Austrian School.