Wynne Godley
Wynne Alexander Hugh Godley ( born September 2, 1926 in London, † 13 May 2010) was a British oboist, economist and university professor.
Biography
Origin and studies
Wynne Godley was the son of lawyer Hugh Godley, later 2nd Baron Kilbracken and counselor of the Supreme Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords. His grandfather was Arthur Godley 1883-1909 Permanent Under-Secretary of the Ministry of India ( India Office ) and was subsequently 1st Baron Kilbracken. His mother Elizabeth Godley was a poet, playwright, pianist, composer and actress.
In 1933 he was together with his older siblings ward of the royal court, and began his academic career at the private school Ashdown House. After the divorce of his parents as well as the re- marriage of his father, he completed his further education in 1937 at Rugby School. He then began a study in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE ) at New College, Oxford University and graduated this interdisciplinary course influenced by Isaiah Berlin and the economists PWS Andrews, 1947 as valedictorian.
Then he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and graduated in 1950 as an oboist from, and in this year his step- mother committed suicide and his father died. After his return to England in 1951, he was principal oboist in the orchestra Welsh ( Welsh Orchestra ) of the British Broadcasting Corporation ( BBC). In 1954, he then began to work as a economist at the Metal Box Company.
In 1955 he married Kathleen "Kitty" Epstein Freud, the daughter of the sculptor Jacob Epstein and illustrator and divorced wife of painter Lucian Freud. His father Jacob Epstein used his face for the Archangel Michael in his bronze statue St Michael 's Victory over the Devil.
Employees of the Treasury and high school teachers
Between 1956 and 1970, he worked in the Economic Staff of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He gained a reputation for its edgy, yet brilliant predictions of the economic situation and was regarded as " one of the ablest economists of the government" by Harold Wilson. The mid-1960s, he was initially responsible for short-term forecasting, and since 1967 Deputy Director of the Economic Department of the Treasury (Treasury).
He was particularly involved in the planning of the depreciation of the pound sterling in 1967. At this time was in the UK the growth of production in European comparison rather slowly. On November 18, 1967, the pound sterling lost 17 percent of its value since the British government deflationary measures demanded by the International Monetary Fund for an expansion of credit, did not want to accept. The devaluation of the pound sterling and the enormous loss of value of the U.S. dollar against the gold standard in the early 1970s led to the final collapse of the Bretton Woods system.
In 1970, he was through the mediation of Nicholas Kaldor Lecturer and Head of the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Cambridge.
He also worked as a Fellow at King's College London and there designed a new system for accounting and financial planning.
Within the faculty, he was the founder of the Cambridge Economic Policy Group, after the unexpected funding cuts by the Economic and Social Research Council in 1982 issued an economic annual report from 1971 until the dissolution of the group.
However, it did quickly lost faith in the previously operated by it economic forecasts for the Treasury. The view expressed by him particular opinion that Britain should reduce its lack of competitiveness by staying away from the common market and the establishment of import quotas, was rejected by all sides.
As a university teacher, he began in the 1970s, a series of attacks on the economic policies of the governments of the Labour Party and the Conservative Party, which earned him the nickname " Kassandra from the Fens " (The Cassandra of the Fens ). His warnings of impending economic crises was equally pessimistic, although partly consistent. He was one of the few economists who predicted the end of 1972 lasted until 1974 Heath- Barber boom. As in 1977, the ( true ) guidance aufstellte that the UK mid-1980s would have more than three million unemployed, shared a few economists he believes.
During the economic boom of the mid- 1980s, his bleak predictions, however, were commonly regarded as grotesque. This also led to the ignoring of his thesis that an emerging outgrowth of lying about the personal income private expenditure should be corrected and that a recession would be the inevitable consequence.
In addition, he was from 1976 to 1987 and director of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, and was thus able to also find back to his musical passion.
1980 he was appointed professor.
This crisis that led to the 1992 sterling crisis of "Black Wednesday", led him to the Constitution an article with the opening words " The crazy fools " ( The Crazy Fools ). On the other hand, this crisis led to his partial rehabilitation: The accuracy of his predictions meant that the Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont called him in his consulting staff of six farming practices ( Six wise men ).
In 1993 he was emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge. Nevertheless, he continued his activity in the panel of independent economic forecaster of the Treasury until 1995 and was then an employee of the Levy Institute in New York.
In 1998, he was among the first who warned against the growing imbalance in the world economy, which ( in his opinion ) by the growing indebtedness of households in the United States of America is no longer reside.
He was also one of the critics of Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who wanted to be solved by the development of the monetary policy of the Bank of England and the adoption of the so-called Golden Rule of a cyclic balanced budget, the problems of macroeconomic management. In 2005, he foresaw that the discretionary fiscal policy as would return.
Publications
Godley was also the author of numerous books and articles. His major publications include:
- Wynne Godley / T. Francis Cripps: Macroeconomics, 1983, ISBN 0192153587