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John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton (pronounced kānz / kAnze), ) (June 5, 1883 – April 21, 1946) was an English economist, whose ideas had a major impact on modern economic and political theory as well as on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. He is particularly remembered for advocating interventionist government policy, by which the government would use fiscal and monetary measures to aim to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions, depressions and booms. He is considered by many to be the founder of modern macroeconomics.

Biography

Education

John Maynard Keynes was the son of John Neville Keynes, an economics lecturer at Cambridge University and Florence Ada Brown, a successful author and a social reformist. Keynes enjoyed an elite early education at Eton, where he displayed talent in nearly every field of his unusually wide-ranging interests. His abilities were remarkable for their sheer diversity. He entered King’s College, Cambridge to study mathematics, but his interest in politics led him towards the field of economics, which he studied at Cambridge under A.C. Pigou and Alfred Marshall.

Career

In the interest of finding some source of income, Keynes postponed writing his dissertation for Cambridge, and instead took the civil service examinations, in which he placed second. Hilariously, he got his worst grade in the economics portion, to which he remarked, “The examiners presumably knew less than I did.” The most desirable opening in the British Treasury being taken by the person who came first, Keynes accepted a job in the India Office, the demands of which he claims were so low that he divided his time between reading the newspaper and catching up on personal correspondence. Also during this time, he worked on his dissertation, which was—to his annoyance—not accepted when he submitted it, meaning also that the accompanying lifelong fellowship to Cambridge was not granted either. Instead, he accepted a lectureship in economics funded personally by Alfred Marshall, from which position he began to build his reputation as an economist. Soon he was appointed to the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance, a position from which he could show his considerable talent at applying economic theory to practical problems. Having demonstrated such an aptitude, particularly with regards to currency and credit, his services were called on after the outbreak of the first World War. He worked for the Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the Treasury on Financial and Economic Questions. Among his responsibilities were the design of terms of credit between Britain and its continental allies during the war, and the acquisition of scarce currencies. At this latter endeavor Keynes’ “nerve and mastery became legendary,” in the words of Robert Lekachman, as in the case where he managed to put together—with difficulty—a small supply of Spanish pesetas and sold them all to break the market: it worked, and pesetas became much less scarce and expensive. These accomplishments led eventually to the appointment that would have a huge effect on Keynes’ life and career: financial representative for the Treasury to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

Keynes' career lifted off as an adviser to the British finance department from 1915–1919 during World War I, and their representative at the Versailles peace conference in 1919. The visit resulting in the publication of The Economic Consequences of the Peace the same year followed by A Revision of the Treaty in 1922 earned him public prominence. The works argued that the reparations which Germany was forced to pay to the victors in the war were too large and would lead to the ruin of the German economy. These predictions were arguably borne out when the German economy collapsed in the hyperinflation of 1923, with only a small amount of reparations ever being paid.

Keynes published his Treatise on Probability in 1920, a notable contribution to the philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of probability theory. He attacked the deflation policies of the 1920s with A Tract on Monetary Reform in 1923, a trenchant argument that countries should target stability of domestic prices and proposing flexible exchange rates. The Treatise on Money 1930 (2 volumes) effectively set out his Wicksellian theory of the credit cycle.

His magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money challenged the economic paradigm when published in 1936. In this book Keynes put forward a theory based upon the notion of aggregate demand to explain variations in the overall level of economic activity, such as were observed in the Great Depression. The total income in a society is defined by the sum of consumption and investment; and in a state of unemployment and unused production capacity, one can only enhance employment and total income by first increasing expenditures for either consumption or investment.

Keynes reading from his General Theory

The total amount of saving in a society is determined by the total income and thus, the economy could achieve an increase of total saving, even if the interest rates were lowered to increase the expenditures for investment. The book advocated activist economic policy by government to stimulate demand in times of high unemployment, for example by spending on public works. The book is often viewed as the foundation of modern macroeconomics and had a profound impact on U.S. president Roosevelt's New Deal.

In 1942 Keynes was a very recognised economist and was raised to the peerage as Baron Keynes of Tilton. During World War II, Keynes argued in How to pay for the war that the war effort should be largely financed by higher taxation, rather than deficit spending, in order to avoid inflation. As Allied victory began to look certain, Keynes was heavily involved, as leader of the British delegation and chairman of the World Bank commission, in the negotiations that established the Bretton Woods system. The Keynes-plan, concerning an international clearing-union argued for a radical system for the management of currencies, involving a world central bank, the Bancor, responsible for a common world unit of currency. The USA's greater negotiating strength, however, meant that the final outcomes accorded more closely to the less radical plans of Harry Dexter White.

Harry Dexter White (left) and John Maynard Keynes at the Bretton Woods Conference

Keynes wrote Essays in Biography and Essays in Persuasion, the former giving portraits of economists and notables, whilst the latter presents some of Keynes' attempts to influence decision-makers during the Great Depression. Keynes was editor in chief for the Economical Journal from 1912.

Investor

Keynes' brilliant record as an investor is demonstrated by the publicly available data of a fund he managed on behalf of King's College, Cambridge.

From 1928 to 1945, despite taking a massive hit during the Crash of 1929, Keynes' fund produced a very strong average increase of 13.2% compared with the general market in the United Kingdom declining by an average 0.5% per annum.

The approach generally adopted by Keynes with his investments he summarised accordingly:

  • 1. A careful selection of a few investments having regard to their cheapness in relation to their probable actual and potential intrinsic value over a period of years ahead and in relation to alternative investments at the time;
  • 2. A steadfast holding of these fairly large units through thick and thin, perhaps for several years, until either they have fulfilled their promise or it is evident that they were purchases on a mistake, and;
  • 3. A balanced investment position, i.e. a variety of risks in spite of individual holdings being large, and if possible opposed risks (e.g. a holding of gold shares among other equities, since they are likely to move in opposite directions when there are general fluctuations).

Keynes argued that "It is a mistake to think one limits one's risks by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence ... One's knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself to put full confidence."

Keynes' advice on speculation, some might say, is timeless:

(Investment is) intolerably boring and over-exacting to any one who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll.

When reviewing an important early work on equities investments, Keynes argued that "Well-managed industrial companies do not, as a rule, distribute to the shareholders the whole of their earned profits. In good years, if not in all years, they retain a part of their profits and put them back in the business. Thus there is an element of compound interest operating in favor of a sound industrial investment."

Personal and Marital life

Standing at approximately 6' 9", Keynes was very tall even by today's standards. In the early part of his life he had homosexual relationships. He had a series of relationships with men during his university days, and a serious relationship with the Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant from 1908 to 1915. Keynes continued to assist Grant financially for the rest of his life. Keynes met Lydia Lopokova, a well-known Russian ballerina, in October 1918. The two married, and by most accounts, Keynes enjoyed a happy marriage with Lopokova. They were unable to have children for medical reasons.

Keynes was ultimately a successful investor building up a substantial private fortune. He was nearly wiped out following the Wall Street Crash but soon recouped his fortunes. He enjoyed collecting books and for example collected and protected during his lifetime many of Isaac Newton's papers. He was interested in literature in general and drama in particular and supported the Cambridge Arts Theatre financially, which allowed the institution to become at least for a while a major British stage outside of London. Keynes died of cardiac infarction, his heart problems being aggravated by the strain of working on post-war international financial problems.

John Neville Keynes (1852 - 1949) outlived his son by three years. Keynes' brother Sir Geoffrey Keynes (1887-1982) was a distinguished surgeon, scholar and bibliophile. His nephews are Richard Keynes (born 1919), a physiologist, and Quentin Keynes (1921-2003) an adventurer and bibliophile.

Influences on Keynes' works

  • Arthur C. Pigou
  • Alfred Marshall
  • Adam Smith
  • David Ricardo
  • Karl Marx

Keynes' influence

Keynes' theories were so influential, even when disputed, that a subfield of Macroeconomics called Keynesian economics is further developing and discussing his theories and their applications. John Maynard Keynes had several cultural interests and was a central figure in the so-called Bloomsbury group, consisting of prominent artists and authors in Great Britain. His autobiographical essays Two Memoirs appeared in 1949.

Critique

The work 1930 Treatise on Money (2 volumes) was regarded as Keynes's best work by his frequent intellectual opponent, Milton Friedman. Friedman and other monetarists have argued that Keynesian Economists do not pay enough attention to stagflation and other inflationary issues.

  • Friedrich von Hayek reviewed the Treatise on Money so harshly that Keynes decided to set Piero Sraffa to review (and condemn no less harshly) Hayek's own competing work. The Keynes-Hayek conflict was but one battle in the Cambridge-LSE war.
  • Ludwig von Mises
  • Rational expectations


References

  • Essays on John Maynard Keynes, Milo Keynes (Editor), Cambridge University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-521-20534-4
  • John Maynard Keynes: Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920, Robert Skidelsky, Papermac, 1992, ISBN 033357379X (US Edition: ISBN 014023554X)
  • John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour 1920-1937, Robert Skidelsky, Papermac, 1994, ISBN 0333584996 (US Edition: ISBN 0140238069)
  • The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Daniel Yergin with Joseph Stanislaw, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998, ISBN 0684829754
  • John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain 1937-1946 (published in the United States as Fighting for Freedom), Robert Skidelsky, Papermac, 2001, ISBN 0333779711 (US Edition: ISBN 0142001678)

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. Following the gift of his home to the State of Ohio for the Spiegel Grove State Park he was reinterred there in 1915. Friedman and other monetarists have argued that Keynesian Economists do not pay enough attention to stagflation and other inflationary issues. Interment was in Oakwood Cemetery. The work 1930 Treatise on Money (2 volumes) was regarded as Keynes's best work by his frequent intellectual opponent, Milton Friedman. on Tuesday January 17, 1893. His autobiographical essays Two Memoirs appeared in 1949. Rutherford Birchard Hayes died of complications of a heart attack in Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio, at 11:00 p.m.

John Maynard Keynes had several cultural interests and was a central figure in the so-called Bloomsbury group, consisting of prominent artists and authors in Great Britain. He had, in his inaugural address, proposed a one-term limit for the presidency combined with an increase in the term length to six years. Keynes' theories were so influential, even when disputed, that a subfield of Macroeconomics called Keynesian economics is further developing and discussing his theories and their applications. Hayes did not seek re-election in 1880, keeping his pledge that he would not run for a second term. His nephews are Richard Keynes (born 1919), a physiologist, and Quentin Keynes (1921-2003) an adventurer and bibliophile. Hayes appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:. Keynes' brother Sir Geoffrey Keynes (1887-1982) was a distinguished surgeon, scholar and bibliophile.
.

John Neville Keynes (1852 - 1949) outlived his son by three years. During his presidency Hayes signed a number of bills including one signed on February 15, 1879 which, for the first time, allowed female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. Keynes died of cardiac infarction, his heart problems being aggravated by the strain of working on post-war international financial problems. His descision made him a hero in Paraguay, and a city (Villa Hayes) and a region (Presidente Hayes) was named in his honour. He was interested in literature in general and drama in particular and supported the Cambridge Arts Theatre financially, which allowed the institution to become at least for a while a major British stage outside of London. The Argentines hoped that Hayes would give the Chaco region to them, however he decided in favour of the Paraguayans. He enjoyed collecting books and for example collected and protected during his lifetime many of Isaac Newton's papers. In 1878 Hayes was asked by the Argentines to act as arbitrator following the War of the Triple Alliance between Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay against Paraguay.

He was nearly wiped out following the Wall Street Crash but soon recouped his fortunes. This is sometimes considered to be a second Corrupt Bargain. Keynes was ultimately a successful investor building up a substantial private fortune. An agreement was made between them and the Republicans -- if Hayes' cabinet consisted of at least one Southerner and he withdrew all Union troups from the South, then he would become president. They were unable to have children for medical reasons. After months of deliberation and bargaining, Southern Democrats were assured that if Hayes were elected, he would pull federal troops out of the South and end Reconstruction. The two married, and by most accounts, Keynes enjoyed a happy marriage with Lopokova. To make matters worse, three of these states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) were in the South, which was still under military occupation, the fourth being Oregon.

Keynes met Lydia Lopokova, a well-known Russian ballerina, in October 1918. In order to win, the candidates had to muster 185 votes: Tilden was short just one, with 184 votes, Hayes had 165, with 20 votes representing four states which were contested. Keynes continued to assist Grant financially for the rest of his life. Four states' electoral college votes were contested. He had a series of relationships with men during his university days, and a serious relationship with the Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant from 1908 to 1915. Tilden, was the favorite to win the presidential election and, in fact, won the popular vote by about 250,000 votes (with about 8.5 million voters in total). In the early part of his life he had homosexual relationships. He had a reputation for honesty dating back to his Civil War years, when as a major general he had refused to campaign for Congress, saying that any officer who left his command to run for office "ought to be scalped." As Governor of Ohio, his scrupulousness sometimes dismayed even his political allies, and Hayes was nicknamed "Old Granny." Nevertheless, his opponent in the presidential election, Democrat Samuel J.

Standing at approximately 6' 9", Keynes was very tall even by today's standards. Hayes became president after the tumultuous, scandal-ridden years of the Grant administration. Thus there is an element of compound interest operating in favor of a sound industrial investment.". He took the oath again publicly on March 5 on the East Portico of the United States Capitol, and he served until March 4, 1881. In good years, if not in all years, they retain a part of their profits and put them back in the business. Since March 4, 1877 was a Sunday, Hayes took the oath of office in the Red Room of the White House on March 3. When reviewing an important early work on equities investments, Keynes argued that "Well-managed industrial companies do not, as a rule, distribute to the shareholders the whole of their earned profits. He was again elected Governor and served from January 1876 to March 2, 1877, when he resigned, having been elected President of the United States.

Keynes' advice on speculation, some might say, is timeless:. He was Governor from 1868 to 1872, and an unsuccessful candidate for election to the Forty-third Congress. One's knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself to put full confidence.". Hayes was elected as a Republican to the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses and served from March 4, 1865, to July 20, 1867, when he resigned, having been nominated for Governor of Ohio. Keynes argued that "It is a mistake to think one limits one's risks by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence ..
He was a Representative from Ohio prior to his Presidency. The approach generally adopted by Keynes with his investments he summarised accordingly:. He was rather close to his sister as can bee seen in his diary entry: July, 1856.--My dear only sister, my beloved Fanny, is dead! The dearest friend of childhood, the affectionate adviser, the confidante of all my life, the one I loved best, is gone; alas! never again to be seen on earth.

From 1928 to 1945, despite taking a massive hit during the Crash of 1929, Keynes' fund produced a very strong average increase of 13.2% compared with the general market in the United Kingdom declining by an average 0.5% per annum. He was commissioned a major of the Twenty-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, on June 27, 1861, lieutenant colonel, on October 24, 1861, colonel on October 24, 1862, brigadier general of Volunteers on October 9, 1864, and brevetted major general of Volunteers on March 3, 1865. Keynes' brilliant record as an investor is demonstrated by the publicly available data of a fund he managed on behalf of King's College, Cambridge. He was city solicitor from 1857 to 1859. Keynes was editor in chief for the Economical Journal from 1912. He moved to Cincinnati in 1849 and resumed the practice of law. Keynes wrote Essays in Biography and Essays in Persuasion, the former giving portraits of economists and notables, whilst the latter presents some of Keynes' attempts to influence decision-makers during the Great Depression. He was admitted to the bar on May 10, 1845, and commenced practice in Lower Sandusky, Ohio (now Fremont, Ohio).

The USA's greater negotiating strength, however, meant that the final outcomes accorded more closely to the less radical plans of Harry Dexter White. He graduated from Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, in August 1842 and from the Harvard Law School in January 1845. The Keynes-plan, concerning an international clearing-union argued for a radical system for the management of currencies, involving a world central bank, the Bancor, responsible for a common world unit of currency. He attended the common schools, the Methodist Academy in Norwalk, Ohio, and the Webb Preparatory School in Middletown, Connecticut. As Allied victory began to look certain, Keynes was heavily involved, as leader of the British delegation and chairman of the World Bank commission, in the negotiations that established the Bretton Woods system. Hayes' father died before Hayes was born. During World War II, Keynes argued in How to pay for the war that the war effort should be largely financed by higher taxation, rather than deficit spending, in order to avoid inflation. He was born in Delaware County, Ohio, October 4, 1822 to Rutherford Hayes and Sophia Birchard.

In 1942 Keynes was a very recognised economist and was raised to the peerage as Baron Keynes of Tilton. . president Roosevelt's New Deal. Rutherford Birchard Hayes (October 4, 1822 – January 17, 1893) was the 19th President of the United States (1877 – 1881). The book is often viewed as the foundation of modern macroeconomics and had a profound impact on U.S. Hayes Presidential Center. The book advocated activist economic policy by government to stimulate demand in times of high unemployment, for example by spending on public works. Rutherford B.

The total amount of saving in a society is determined by the total income and thus, the economy could achieve an increase of total saving, even if the interest rates were lowered to increase the expenditures for investment. History of the United States (1865-1918). The total income in a society is defined by the sum of consumption and investment; and in a state of unemployment and unused production capacity, one can only enhance employment and total income by first increasing expenditures for either consumption or investment. presidential election, 1876. In this book Keynes put forward a theory based upon the notion of aggregate demand to explain variations in the overall level of economic activity, such as were observed in the Great Depression. U.S. His magnum opus, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money challenged the economic paradigm when published in 1936. Timber and Stone Act (1878).

The Treatise on Money 1930 (2 volumes) effectively set out his Wicksellian theory of the credit cycle. Bland-Allison Act (1878). He attacked the deflation policies of the 1920s with A Tract on Monetary Reform in 1923, a trenchant argument that countries should target stability of domestic prices and proposing flexible exchange rates. Great Railroad Strike (1877). Keynes published his Treatise on Probability in 1920, a notable contribution to the philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of probability theory. Illinois (1877). These predictions were arguably borne out when the German economy collapsed in the hyperinflation of 1923, with only a small amount of reparations ever being paid. Munn v.

The works argued that the reparations which Germany was forced to pay to the victors in the war were too large and would lead to the ruin of the German economy. Desert Land Act (1877). The visit resulting in the publication of The Economic Consequences of the Peace the same year followed by A Revision of the Treaty in 1922 earned him public prominence. Compromise of 1877 (1877). Keynes' career lifted off as an adviser to the British finance department from 1915–1919 during World War I, and their representative at the Versailles peace conference in 1919. William Burnham Woods - 1881. These accomplishments led eventually to the appointment that would have a huge effect on Keynes’ life and career: financial representative for the Treasury to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. John Marshall Harlan - 1877.

At this latter endeavor Keynes’ “nerve and mastery became legendary,” in the words of Robert Lekachman, as in the case where he managed to put together—with difficulty—a small supply of Spanish pesetas and sold them all to break the market: it worked, and pesetas became much less scarce and expensive. Among his responsibilities were the design of terms of credit between Britain and its continental allies during the war, and the acquisition of scarce currencies. He worked for the Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the Treasury on Financial and Economic Questions. Having demonstrated such an aptitude, particularly with regards to currency and credit, his services were called on after the outbreak of the first World War.

Soon he was appointed to the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance, a position from which he could show his considerable talent at applying economic theory to practical problems. Instead, he accepted a lectureship in economics funded personally by Alfred Marshall, from which position he began to build his reputation as an economist. Also during this time, he worked on his dissertation, which was—to his annoyance—not accepted when he submitted it, meaning also that the accompanying lifelong fellowship to Cambridge was not granted either. Hilariously, he got his worst grade in the economics portion, to which he remarked, “The examiners presumably knew less than I did.” The most desirable opening in the British Treasury being taken by the person who came first, Keynes accepted a job in the India Office, the demands of which he claims were so low that he divided his time between reading the newspaper and catching up on personal correspondence.

In the interest of finding some source of income, Keynes postponed writing his dissertation for Cambridge, and instead took the civil service examinations, in which he placed second. Pigou and Alfred Marshall. He entered King’s College, Cambridge to study mathematics, but his interest in politics led him towards the field of economics, which he studied at Cambridge under A.C. His abilities were remarkable for their sheer diversity.

Keynes enjoyed an elite early education at Eton, where he displayed talent in nearly every field of his unusually wide-ranging interests. John Maynard Keynes was the son of John Neville Keynes, an economics lecturer at Cambridge University and Florence Ada Brown, a successful author and a social reformist. . He is considered by many to be the founder of modern macroeconomics.

He is particularly remembered for advocating interventionist government policy, by which the government would use fiscal and monetary measures to aim to mitigate the adverse effects of economic recessions, depressions and booms. Roosevelt's New Deal. John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton (pronounced kānz / kAnze), ) (June 5, 1883 – April 21, 1946) was an English economist, whose ideas had a major impact on modern economic and political theory as well as on Franklin D. John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Britain 1937-1946 (published in the United States as Fighting for Freedom), Robert Skidelsky, Papermac, 2001, ISBN 0333779711 (US Edition: ISBN 0142001678).

The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy, Daniel Yergin with Joseph Stanislaw, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998, ISBN 0684829754. John Maynard Keynes: The Economist as Saviour 1920-1937, Robert Skidelsky, Papermac, 1994, ISBN 0333584996 (US Edition: ISBN 0140238069). John Maynard Keynes: Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920, Robert Skidelsky, Papermac, 1992, ISBN 033357379X (US Edition: ISBN 014023554X). Essays on John Maynard Keynes, Milo Keynes (Editor), Cambridge University Press, 1975, ISBN 0-521-20534-4.

Rational expectations. Ludwig von Mises. The Keynes-Hayek conflict was but one battle in the Cambridge-LSE war. Friedrich von Hayek reviewed the Treatise on Money so harshly that Keynes decided to set Piero Sraffa to review (and condemn no less harshly) Hayek's own competing work.

Karl Marx. David Ricardo. Adam Smith. Alfred Marshall.

Pigou. Arthur C. a variety of risks in spite of individual holdings being large, and if possible opposed risks (e.g. a holding of gold shares among other equities, since they are likely to move in opposite directions when there are general fluctuations). A balanced investment position, i.e.

3. A steadfast holding of these fairly large units through thick and thin, perhaps for several years, until either they have fulfilled their promise or it is evident that they were purchases on a mistake, and;. 2. A careful selection of a few investments having regard to their cheapness in relation to their probable actual and potential intrinsic value over a period of years ahead and in relation to alternative investments at the time;.

1.