The Stable of Talent at Bretton Woods: Economists, Part 1

The best-known delegate at the Bretton Woods conference, then and now, was John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the 20th century. There were also many lesser-known but talented economists at Bretton Woods, who like Keynes contributed significantly to academic economics. I was surprised when I looked at the list of delegates how many had written books I had read or at least knew of. This post, drawn in part from Appendix A of The Bretton Woods Transcripts, lists only American and British economists and some of their most notable books. My next post will list economists from other countries, including several of foreign origin who were in exile in the United States during World War II. Besides those listed, there were others whose contributions were mainly to economic policy, or to national economic questions that did not have an international audience. I am aware of no other international conference with such a collection of important economists.

United Kingdom
John Maynard Keynes: one of the few economists ever to have a durable school of thought named after him; major works include The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919); A Tract on Monetary Reform (1923); A Treatise on Money (1930); The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)
Dennis H. Robertson: Cambridge University; the best writer economics has ever produced; major works include Money (1922); Banking Policy and the Price Level (1926; his most important yet worst-written book); Essays in Monetary Theory (1940)
Lionel Robbins: professor, London School of Economics, and a leader in its rise to international eminence; Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1932); The Great Depression (1934; a work he later disavowed); A History of Economic Thought (1998, posthumous)
Sir Theodor E. Gregory: professor, London School of Economics;  advisor to India at Bretton Woods; Tariffs: A Study in Method (1921); Foreign Exchange: Before, During and After the War (1930); The Gold Standard and Its Future (1931)
Redvers Opie: Oxford University; translator of Joseph Schumpeter’s Theory of Economic Development (1934)

United States—delegation and members of the conference secretariat
James W. Angell: professor, Columbia University; Theory of International Prices (1926); Behavior of Money (1936)
Emanuel A. Goldenweiser: top Federal Reserve economist; Federal Reserve System in Operation (1925); American Monetary Policy (1951)
Alvin Hansen: professor, Harvard University; introduced the economics of John Maynard Keynes in the United States; Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy (1949); A Guide to Keynes (1953)
George Luthringer: Gold-Exchange Standards in the Philippines (1934); Money, Credit and Finance (1937)
William Adams Brown, Jr.: England and the New Gold Standard, 1919-1926 (1929); The International Gold Standard Reinterpreted, 1914-1934 (1940)
Raymond Mikesell: professor, University of Oregon; Foreign Exchange in the Postwar World (1954); several works on natural resources
John Parke Young: Central American Currency and Finance (1925)
Arthur N. Young: brother of John Parke Young; advisor to China at Bretton Woods; The Single Tax Movement in the United States (1916); China’s Wartime Finance and Inflation, 1937-1945 (1965)
Mordecai Ezekiel: described the “pork cycle,” a textbook staple for decades; Methods of Correlation Analysis (1930)