Keynes

John Maynard Keynes

Born: 5 June 1883 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
Died: 21 April 1946 in Firle, Sussex, England

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John Maynard Keynes was an economist making important contributions to probability theory and mathematical economics. He became a lecturer in economics at Cambridge, where he was educated, until the start of World War I when he worked for the government.

In 1921 his Treatise on Probability was published although it had been completed 10 years earlier. It was an attempt to put probability on a firm mathematical basis and Russell said

The mathematical calculus is astonishingly powerful ... the book is one which it is impossible to praise too highly .

Keynes was an advisor at the Paris Peace conference, but withdrew and attacked its conclusions. A conventional economist until the depression when he wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935) he returned to favour and was the British representative in 1944 at the conference which set up the International Monetary Fund.

References:

  1. Dictionary of Scientific Biography
  2. Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. R F Harrod, The Life of John Maynard Keynes (New York-London, 1960).
  4. D D Dillard, The Economics of John Maynard Keynes (1948, reprinted 1982).
  5. R Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes Vol 1 : Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920 (London, 1983).
  6. R Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes Vol 2 : The economist as saviour, 1920-1937 (London, 1992).
  7. R Lekachman, The age of Keynes : a biographical study (Harmondsworth, 1969).
  8. M Keynes, Essays on John Maynard Keynes (London, 1975).
  9. D E Moggridge, Keynes (London, 1976). 
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JOC/EFR February 1996