Karl Brunner received his doctorate at the University of Zürich and was Fred H. Gowen Professor of Economics, and Director, Center for Research in Government Policy and Business, William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester. His main interest in economics was on the nature of the money supply process and the philosophy of science and logic.

Brunner advocated little government interference on the same grounds as did Friedrich von Hayek, which he explains in his own words as follows,"Eminent Economists, Their life Philosophies, (Szenberg)":

"...Discretionary policy and pre-c ommitment directed to longer-term consideration and predictability continue to be argued. The central issue in this debate often seems somewhat obscured. It involves the hypothesis about man and the information he may command. Human nature and the reli able information at hand crucially condition the working and consequences of different political institutions. Advocacy of activist and discretionary policy is a rational consequence of the socialogical model of man supplemented with full and reliable in formation about the structure of the relevant processes. For many years I have argued that these conditions do not hold. I had concluded that the sociological model, particularly in its form as the public interest, or goodwill, theory of government, is empirically untenable. Moreover, the information requirement imposed by an activist policy can never be satisfied. The social process continuously generates and disseminates new information. The resulting modification of perceived opportunities induces revisions of optimal behavior patterns, and thus variations in the economic structure over time. The best we can achieve is the choice of institutional arrangements that minimize uncertainty and offer as many women and men as possible a chance to shape their own lives."

Works by Karl Brunner:

• My Quest For Economic Knowledge, Eminent Economists, Their life Philosophies
  
• The Report of the Commission on Money and Credit, Journal of Political Economy
  
• Assumptions and the Cognitive Quality of Theories, Synthese
  
• The Perception of Man and the Conception of Society: Two Approaches to Understanding Society, Economic Enquiry
  
• The Perception of Man and the Concept of Government, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking
  
• The Meaning of Monetary Indicators, Monetary Process and Policy: A Symposium
  
• The Uses of Money: Money in the Theory of an Exchange Economy, American Economic Review