John Maynard Keynes
English economist whose theories of government spending in recessions shaped economic policy after the Great Depression; a designer of the Bretton Woods system.
Biography
John Maynard Keynes was an English economist whose ideas changed economic policy in the 20th century. He worked at the Treasury and attended the Paris Peace Conference, then attacked the treaty's reparations in The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919).
In The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) he argued that total demand can stay too low for full employment and that governments should use spending and fiscal policy to stabilise the economy.
During the Second World War he advised the Treasury and led the British delegation at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference, which created the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
