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Published by EH.NET (December 2002) 
 
Anthony M. Endres and Grant A. Fleming, _International Organizations and 
the Analysis of Economic Policy, 1919-1950_. New York: Cambridge University 
Press, 2002. xiv + 290 pp. $65 (hardcover), ISBN: 521-79267-3. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by D.E. Moggridge, Department of Economics, University 
of Toronto. <[log in to unmask]> 
 
 
The purpose of this book is to explore the intellectual contributions of 
economists who worked in or were consultants to important international 
organizations between 1919 and 1950. The organizations in question are the 
International Labour Organization, the Economic and Financial Section of 
the League of Nations, the Bank for International Settlements and, after 
1945, some parts of the United Nations. In looking at these, the authors 
are concerned to address five questions: "what was distinctive, innovative 
and significant in a doctrinal history sense about research"; "what policy 
questions stimulated the research undertaken and what policy position 
flowed from the research"; "what intellectual influences acted on that 
research"; how did the research relate to prevailing orthodoxies and 
changes therein; and "what limitations can be identified in the economics 
as practised ... in these organizations" (pp. 7-8). The book proceeds by 
topic: business cycles, monetary policy, public investment policy, trade 
policy, social economics, international finance and the full employment 
movement of the late 1940s. However its coverage is occasionally 
unexpectedly narrow: its discussion of late 1940s Keynesianism does not 
extend to national accounting, presumably because the individuals 
concerned, one of whom received a Nobel Prize in Economics for his work, 
were called "statistical experts" and thus not considered economists. 
 
Despite the authors' claims for broad institutional coverage, their most 
serious archival research centers on the International Labour Organization, 
with the Economic and Financial Section receiving less attention and the 
Bank for International Settlements receiving none. (All references to 
thinking in that institution are to its published _Annual Reports_, despite 
the availability of Per Jacobbson's diary in the Library of the University 
of Basle.) The restriction of their archival research to Geneva also means 
that they ignore other possible relevant sources such as J.B. Condliffe's 
papers and diary at Berkeley, Alexander Loveday's papers at Nuffield 
College, Oxford and Gottfried Haberler's papers at the Hoover Institution. 
 
The patchiness in the archival research in the case of the League shows up 
most clearly in the discussions of its business cycle research program. It 
has been known for some years that Dennis Robertson had substantial 
correspondence with Alexander Loveday (the Director of the Economic, 
Financial and Transit Section) as well as Gottfried Haberler, and Jan 
Tinbergen (see Mizen, Moggridge and Presley 1997). Indeed, it was Robertson 
who was first offered the job that eventuated in Haberler's _Prosperity and 
Depression_ and it was Robertson who was hired by Loveday as a consultant 
and adviser to Tinbergen, with the result that one of the League-sponsored 
conferences devoted to Tinbergen's work was held in Trinity College, 
Cambridge in July 1938. Yet in the relevant chapter Robertson does not make 
anything other than a cameo appearance at a League meeting to discuss 
Tinbergen in September 1937 until he reviewed in 1945 the Report of the 
League's Delegation on Economic Depressions (for which, at Loveday's 
request, he wrote a minimum program of action back in 1938). 
 
As I have noted, the ILO archives seem to have been more thoroughly mined 
than the League's with the result that the chapters on monetary policy, 
public works and social economics are devoted to the views of its experts. 
The exposition of ILO views and their evolution is clear and well done. If 
there are any difficulties it is placing these views in context, especially 
in relation to the evolving ideas on monetary policy and of one particular 
economist, J.M. Keynes. Here the problem is that the authors misread _A 
Treatise on Money_, with its special case for public works, despite their 
quoting secondary literature that should have reminded them that they were 
doing so rather than, as they think, the opposite (p. 76). As a result the 
place of the ILO is understated. On the Keynes front, there is also a 
problem as to the relation of later editions of _Prosperity and Depression_ 
to Keynes's views: the fact that Keynes favorably reviewed the second 
edition seems to have eluded the authors. They also are in some difficulty 
with the work of J.R. Bellerby at the ILO whose originality is understated 
because the authors are unclear as to his formal training and possible 
intellectual influences, where a reading of his _Who's Who_ entry might 
have helped. 
 
The study is more successful in the area of trade policy, where the authors 
demonstrate that the League's economists did carve out a distinctive 
position, and discussing Ragnar Nurkse's _International Currency 
Experience_ (1944) and _Course and Control of Inflation_ (1946). However, 
the discussion of _International Currency Experience_ is distinctive 
compared to other chapters in the study in that it is less related to 
contemporary developments of the 1940s than to the literature of the 1970s 
to 1990s. Perhaps, as a result, it is misleading on the original Bretton 
Woods attitudes to freedom of capital movements. The handling of the "full 
employment movement" of the later 1940s is more successful in retaining its 
links to contemporary discussions. 
 
In the end the authors find that economists in international organizations 
were generally cautious, guarded and tentative in their policy analysis. 
They also suggest that in the 1920s in particular the macroeconomic and 
monetary analyses of economists in international organizations were more a 
reflection of contemporary orthodoxy than later, although there was some 
return to the 1920s situation in 1940s. In between, perhaps because of 
disagreements within the profession, in macroeconomic matters economists in 
international organizations could be much more eclectic in staking out 
distinctive positions. In trade and international monetary affairs, the 
League's economists successfully staked out distinctive positions, perhaps 
because in both cases the League was on the sidelines rather than at the 
center of contemporary policy discussions. The overall record of 
contributions is substantial. We are indebted to the authors for 
highlighting it. 
 
Reference: 
Paul Mizen, Don Moggridge, and John Presley (1995), "The Papers of Dennis 
Robertson: The Discovery of Unexpected Riches," _History of Political 
Economy_ 29 (Winter 1997), 573-92. 
 
 
D.E. Moggridge is Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto. In 
the past he has edited the papers of John Maynard Keynes, James Meade and 
Lionel Robbins. He is currently engaged in preparing an edition of Dennis 
Robertson's professional correspondence for the Royal Economic Society and 
in writing an intellectual biography of Harry Johnson. 
 
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