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, Strasbourg, Vienna, Leipzig, and most importantly, Munich (1891 – 1914). After the revolution of November 1918, he served in prime minister Kurt Eisner's government as People's Commissar (Minister) for Trade, but only for some days in December 1918.

In 1914, he signed the Manifesto of the Ninety - Three.

Brentano died in Munich in 1931.

Brentano was a Kathedersozialist (reform - minded) and a founding member of the Verein für Socialpolitik. His influence on the social market economy, and on many Germans who would be leaders just after the end of World War II, can hardly be overrated.

Note: It is often mistakenly claimed that Brentano was called Ludwig Joseph, and that "Lujo" was a kind of nickname or contraction. This is incorrect; while he was given his name after a Ludwig and a Joseph, Lujo was his real and legal first name.