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Lujo Brentano (18 December 1844 - 9 September 1931) was an eminent German economist and social reformer.
Lujo Brentano, born in Aschaffenburg into one of the most distinguished German-Catholic intellectual families (originally of Italian descent), attended school in Augsburg and Aschaffenburg. He studied in Dublin (Trinity College), Münster, Munich, Heidelberg (doctorate in law), Würzburg, Göttingen (doctorate in economics), and Berlin (habilitation in economics, 1871). He was a professor of economics and state sciences at the universities of Breslau, Strassburg, Vienna, Leipzig, and most importantly, Munich (1891-1914). He died in Munich.
Brentano was a Kathedersozialist (reform-minded) and a founding member of the Verein für Sozialpolitik. His influence on the social market economy, and on many German leaders just after the end of World War II, can hardly be overrated.
Note: The mistake is often made to say that Brentano was called Ludwig Joseph, and that "Lujo" was a kind of nickname or contraction. This is incorrect; while he was called after a Ludwig and a Joseph, Lujo was his real and legal first name. (See his autobiography, Mein Leben..., below.)