[4] The son of concentration camp survivors, he was born in 1947 in Romania, and immigrated to Israel where he served in the Israeli Army during both the Six-Day War and Yom Kippur War[5] At the core of his economic model is the view that the metaphysical trumps the physical, with human capital the source of true wealth creation around the world.
In his 2002 book, Force of Finance,[7] Brenner notes that economic success in certain countries often results from "political blunders of other nations," that lead "to the rapid outflow of both capital and talented people."
Brenner also integrates his views about democratization of capital markets and entrepreneurship with issues such as nationalism and tolerance, as well as with details about political institutions that can best maintain accountability, illustrating the latter with Swiss' unique "direct democracy."
Labyrinths of Prosperity[8] helps to explain among other things why the Dutch are seen as frugal, why education spending rose in the United States after 1958, and why Russians refrained from buying apartments there after the U.S.S.R.'s collapse.
For the macro-focused, he points out that statistics such as GDP sustain "the illusion that prosperity is necessarily linked with territory, national units, and government spending in general."