The children and grandchildren of a Nobel prizewinning Canadian economist are battling his widow for control of his Italian palazzo and millions of dollars in inheritance.
Robert Mundell, considered “the father of the euro”, died aged 88 in April 2021, without leaving a will.
• Read Mundell’s Times obituary: Economist and iconoclast who was a driving force behind Reaganomics
His wife of 23 years, Valerie Natsios-Mundell, lived with him and their son Nicholas, born in 1997, in the Tuscan villa in the countryside outside of Siena. He spent much of his $1 million Nobel prize money restoring the villa.
Mundell, his wife and son at the villa in 1999
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The villa dates back to the 13th century
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Now his children from his first marriage — his son William and daughter Robyn — as well as two children of his son Paul, who died in a car crash in 2018, are taking legal action against Natsios-Mundell.
They accuse her of barring them from accessing the 13th-century, 65-room house, and claim she has tried to exclude them from rightfully sharing the $4 million he left. The four filed a lawsuit at the New York supreme court on March 15, as first reported by the Daily Beast.
The plaintiffs argue that Mundell suffered a stroke in 2013, but “expressed as best he could that he wanted all his assets split five ways.” His three children, William, Robyn and Paul, would receive a share, as would his wife and their son.
However, they claim a document was altered online in January 2014, making Natsios-Mundell the sole heir. They argue that Mundell “did not have access to a computer or other electronic device” and was not capable of operating one.
That same month Natsios-Mundell sought to gain power of attorney but was refused: in 2019, she succeeded, and was entitled to make large gifts on behalf of Mundell.
The four claim that Natsios-Mundell then transferred $800,000 from his Swiss bank account to an Italian account in her name.
She has not commented on the suit, and still lives in the palazzo.
Mundell, left, receiving his Nobel prize in economics from the King of Sweden in 1999
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With a picture of himself, left, with President Reagan and Mundell’s wife
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Mundell bought bought the five-storey limestone castle — which was described by Paul Krugman, another Nobel-winning economist, as “crumbling” and “half-habitable” — in 1969 for $20,000, as a hedge against the global inflation he was predicting at the time.
It was once owned by Pandolfo Petrucci, who ruled Siena from 1487 until his death in 1512: Mundell renamed it “Palazzo Mundell” and from 1971 onwards hosted annual conferences, gathering former heads of the world’s banks and reserves to debate the economic issues of the day.
He taught at Columbia University, the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins and was awarded the Nobel prize in 1999 — shortly after European nations began the process of abandoning their national currencies in favour of the euro.
The prize was awarded “for his analysis of monetary and fiscal policy under different exchange rate regimes and his analysis of optimum currency areas”. His acceptance speech was widely remembered for his closing serenade — singing several lines of Frank Sinatra’s My Way, as a reference to his independent approach:
A summons was issued to Natsios-Mundell at her address in Italy after the lawsuit was filed. She could not be immediately reached for comment.