Branko Horvat

Branko Horvat
Born 24 July 1928
Petrinja, Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Croatia)
Died 18 December 2003 (aged 75)
Zagreb, Croatia
Nationality Croat
Alma mater University of Rijeka

Branko Horvat (24 July 1928 – 18 December 2003) was a Croatian economist and politician born in Petrinja.

Horvat was born in Petrinja on 24 July 1928. In 1944 during World War II, Horvat and his father Artur Horvat joined the Partisan movement in Croatia.[1] He worked a long time at the Institute of Economic Sciences, the former Planning Institute of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He was the editor of the journal Economic Analysis and Worker’s Self-Management, and collaborator of the journal Praxis, to which he contributed much from an economic viewpoint, though he was never a member of the group. He was also a member of the Economic Institute of Zagreb.

Horvat tried to unite democratic forces on a common platform, but without much success. He was highly critical of the economic policy of the Franjo Tuđman government (as he was before of the communist). He advocated a sort of market socialism, a combination of democratic socialism and a market economy. In 1992 he founded and became president of the Social Democratic Union. Horvat organized a Balkan Conference with the primary aim of restoring cooperation between Yugoslav forces.

His most widely known study is The Political Economy of Socialism (published in 1982 in English, in 1984 in Croatian, and in 2001 in Chinese). He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1987.

Branko Horvat's wife, Ranka Peasinovic, was a professor at the University of Zagreb. He had two daughters, Olga Horvat (resides in the USA) and Branka Horvat (resides in France). His grandchildren were Katharine, Artur and Nikola. Horvat was very career-minded and spent a little time with his family. Not having a "real" father especially affected his younger daughter Olga.

References

  1. ↑ Jaša Romano (1980, p. 392)

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