John Maynard Keynes

The Economic Consequences of the Peace was written by Maynard Keynes in 1919 following his resignation as Treasury representative at the Peace Conference at Versailles. It was this work that first made Maynard Keynes's name a household word, a figure of hatred and public criticism to some, a rallying point for rational thought and action to others. Written in the white heat of anger and despair, it vividly conveys to later generations Keynes's horror that clear thinking, human compassion and solemn pledges had been, in his eyes, destroyed by political opportunism.

This volume contains Keynes's academic articles and reviews on a number of subjects, as well as his previously unpublished 1909 Adam Smith Prize essay on index numbers. Amongst the subjects covered are India, statistics, World War I and its financing, money and international economics. Included are his papers on the transfer problem, supplemented by related correspondence with Bertil Ohlin.

This volume marks the completion of the Collected Writings. The general index to the edition is designed to allow those interested in the development of Keynes's thought, and those interested in the history of economic thought more generally, to trace the development of his ideas throughout his career. The bibliography to the edition records all the writings of Keynes published not only in English but also in translation. It provides an indication of the process by which Keynes's writings were disseminated throughout the world. In addition, this volume includes an editorial introduction describing the principles of selection used by the editors, as well as a few items that escaped them in the preparation of earlier volumes. This volume is an essential tool for the effective use of the material in the twenty-nine other volumes of this edition.

Between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his death in April 1946, Keynes was closely involved in the management of Britain's war economy and the planning of the post-war world. This volume, the fifth of six dealing with this period, focuses on three aspects of his activities in planning the post-war world: the final stages of the discussions and negotiations that brought the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to birth at Bretton Woods and Savannah, the negotiations over commercial policy, and the discussions on reparations and the post-war treatment of Germany. On all of these subjects it contains Keynes's attempts to influence, often with success, the course of events in both Britain and America.

This volume, the fourth of six dealing with the Second World War, is concerned with the origins of what became the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It traces the origins of the ideas involved, the process of argument and redrafting that occurred in Whitehall and the subsequent, primarily Anglo-American, negotiations themselves. It takes the story up to the Joint Bretton Woods Conference. As it contains copies of all drafts of Keynes's Clearing Union proposals, together with extensive sampling of discussions with economists such as Dennis Robertson, James Meade, Roy Harrod and Harry White, it combines the presentation of a set of ideas of continuing relevance with essential background material on the origins of an important post-war international institution.

Once the urgent problems of reparations, which had deeply troubled Keynes at the Peace Conference at Versailles, were on their way towards solution, Keynes turned to the equally grave problems of the currencies of Europe and their adjustment to the post-war world. These issues had been discussed in the series of Reconstruction Supplements of the Manchester Guardian Commercial that he had edited during 1922. In the Tract Keynes drew heavily on his own contributions to that series. This edition makes available the variations between the texts. The Tract remains of interest in three respects. First, it shows the state of Keynes's thinking about monetary problems and the causes of inflation in the early 1920s. Second, it provides one of the clearest expositions ever written of the determination of forward exchange rates. Third, it shows Keynes already favouring flexible exchange rates as a means of allowing independence in national economic policy.

This volume brings together Keynes's attempts to influence public opinion and policy concerning primarily British affairs between 1922 and 1929. During this period, his major concerns were Britain's attempt to return to the gold standard and its consequences, industrial policy (especially in the cotton textile industry) and unemployment policy, although he became briefly involved in many other subjects. Most of the volume consists of Keynes's journalism for the period, but it also contains his previously unpublished evidence to official committees, anonymous contributions to The Nation and Athenaeum and related correspondence.

Keynes's first book, published in 1913, was Indian Currency and Finance. He had served briefly from 1906 to 1908 in the India Office in Whitehall; then as the administrative link between the Government of India and the British parliament. He quickly became involved in the problems of the Indian currency and the then important and fascinating issues concerning the gold-exchange standard. He continued to work on these problems, with the encouragement and help of his former colleagues, after he had returned to Cambridge. The book which resulted, and his known mastery of the problems involved, led to Keynes's first major incursion into public life as a member of the (Austen Chamberlain) Royal Commission on Indian Finance and Currency. The important contributions he made to its work are recorded in detail in Volume 15 of this series, which forms a complement to this volume.

This volume brings together Keynes's attempts to influence the course of public opinion and public policy in Britain and elsewhere between the autumn of 1929 and Britain's departure from the gold standard on 21 September 1931. At its centre are Keynes's activities as a member of the Macmillan Committee on Finance and Industry (including the eight days of 'private evidence' he gave, setting out the theory of his then unpublished Treatise on Money and applying it to Britain's contemporary problems) and the Economic Advisory Council and its committees. It also includes all his related journalism and his correspondence both with senior politicians and with other men of affairs. As such, it is a companion to the volumes dealing with the development of his more formal economic theory during these years, most notably A Treatise on Money.

Most of the essays in this book were first collected together in October 1931, immediately after Britain had left the gold standard. They reflected Keynes's attempts over the previous dozen years to influence public opinion and policy over the Treaty of Versailles, over which he had resigned from the Treasury in June 1919, reparations and inter-allied war debts, stabilisation policy, the gold standard and the shape of liberal politics in Britain. In 1972 the essays were reprinted with the full texts of the pamphlets - Can Lloyd George Do It?, The Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill, A Short View of Russia and The End of Laissez Faire. At that time, the full texts of his two post-1931 pamphlets - The Means to Prosperity and How to Pay for the War - were added. The book contains examples of Keynes's finest writing on economic policy and politics. This edition includes an introduction by Donald Moggridge.

From 1915, when Keynes joined the Treasury, until he resigned in 1919 during the Versailles Conference, he carried a rapidly increasing load of responsibility. This volume prints all the principal papers and memoranda he wrote during those years and throws new light on the crises of inter-allied financial relations and the near exhaustion of British financial resources. It contains also his contributions to the early thinking in the Treasury about post-war reparations and inter-allied debts. It ends with his correspondence, official and private, from Paris, as he saw his hopes of a wise settlement vanishing. This is a necessary companion to The Economic Consequences of the Peace (Volume 2 in this series).

This volume brings together Keynes's writings in a number of fields. It includes a full account of his experience as an investor, both for himself and for others, combined with a selection from his correspondence and memoranda on investment in which he tried to expound his beliefs to others. Also included are his writings on commodities, his early lecture notes on money and a selection of his correspondence as editor of the Economic Journal and a referee for the Macmillan Company.

This volume, with its companion, Volume 14, provides all the surviving letters, drafts and articles arising from Keynes's work as a monetary economist between 1924 and 1939. It contains wherever possible both sides of all correspondence concerning his Treatise on Money and General Theory, both before and after publication, as well as complete texts of all surviving drafts of both works. In addition it contains important correspondence concerning D. H. Robertson's Banking Policy and the Price Level and such post-General Theory contributions as R. F. Harrod's first work on the theory of economic growth. As such, it provides a remarkable chronicle of one man's intellectual development over the quarter of a century that saw a revolution in economics.

A Treatise on Money, completed in 1930, was the outcome of six years of intensive work and argument with D. H. Robertson, R. G. Hawtrey and others. As in the Tract on Monetary Reform, the central concerns of the Treatise are the causes and consequences of changes in the value of money and the means of controlling such changes to increase well-being. The analysis is, however, considerably more complex and the applied statistical work much more elaborate. The Treatise has long been of interest amongst economists, as a precursor of the General Theory, as an important discussion of the mechanics of inflationary and deflationary processes and as an important statement of the problems of national autonomy in the international economy. This edition provides a new edition of the original, corrected on the basis of Keynes's correspondence with other economists and translators. It also provides the prefaces to foreign editions.

Keynes published The Economic Consequences of the Peace in December 1919. Over the next two years events moved rapidly and by the late autumn of 1921 a sequel was needed. While Keynes's views had not changed, any critical observer required a review of the new facts and materials. That is what A Revision of the Treaty provided. By May 1921 a long series of meetings between the Allied Premiers had led, through an even longer series of proposals, counterproposals, attempted settlements and sanctions imposed on Germany, to the London Settlement of Reparations of May 1921. This, as Keynes rightly foresaw, was to be no more permanent that its predecessors. This book shows Keynes at his best in the economic analysis and interpretation of detail as well as main trends, and reveals the validity of much of his earlier criticism of the peacemakers at Versailles.

Between 1921 and 1923 Keynes was involved, with varying degrees of success, in a variety of attempts at influencing British and overseas opinion. This volume prints all the principal articles, letters and memoranda surrounding the publication of The Economic Consequences of the Peace, A Revision of the Treaty and the series 'Reconstruction in Europe', which he edited for the Manchester Guardian Commercial. It also includes important memoranda, articles and correspondence on Britain's post-war monetary policy and international financial policy. As such, it is an important companion to his published work of the period and an important source for material on his development as a monetary economist.

Between the outbreak of war in 1939 and his death in 1946 Keynes was closely involved in the management of Britain's war economy and the planning of the post-war world. This volume, the first of several dealing with this period, focuses on two aspects of his activities during the war: his efforts as a private citizen to influence opinion of the tasks ahead prior to July 1940, and his contributions within the Treasury to Britain's internal financial management thereafter. It contains the correspondence and memoranda surrounding How to Pay for the War, perhaps his most successful essay in persuasion; the 1941 Budget, the first explicitly Keynesian Budget in Britain; the development of the associated national income estimates; and his later attempts to influence other areas of financial policy. This is a necessary companion to How to Pay for the War, which appears in Volume 9 of this series.

During the winter of 1975-6, the Keynes family unexpectedly discovered another collection of Keynes's papers at Tilton, his Sussex house. In this was a substantial amount of material relating to the composition and defence of the General Theory, including many more early drafts. This volume brings together these papers, along with a few others that have come to light since the publication of Volumes 13 and 14 of this series in 1973. It is a necessary companion to these volumes and their chronicle of intellectual development and achievement.

In this volume, the third of three concerned with Keynes's involvement in the problems of financing Britain's war effort after 1939, the concentration is on the final stages of lend lease and the negotiations with the United States for the transition to peacetime conditions and the 1945 loan to Britain.

In 1936 Keynes published the most provocative book written by any economist of his generation. The General Theory, as it is known to all economists, cut through all the Gordian Knots of pre-Keynesian discussion of the trade cycle and propounded a new approach to the determination of the level of economic activity, the problems of employment and unemployment and the causes of inflation. Arguments about the book continued until his death in 1946 and still continue today. Despite all that has been written in the subsequent years, Keynes and his book still represent the turning point between the old economics and the new from which each generation of economists needs to take its inspiration.