John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron of Tilton (Cambridge, England, June 5, 1883 - London, England, April 21, 1946) was the son of John Neville Keynes, registrar of the University of Cambridge and eminent logician and economist. John Maynard's mother was onetime mayor of Cambridge. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge, and began a short career in the civil service, where he was assigned to the India Office from 1906 to 1909. There he acquired an intimate knowledge of the government service. A reorganization of the Economics Department at Cambridge opened up an opportunity for Keynes, who had earlier come under the influence of its head, Alfred Marshall. Resigning from the civil service in 1909 Keynes was elected fellow of King's College and returned to Cambridge. In 1911 he was chosen as editor of the Economic Journal, the publication of the Royal Economic Society and one of the leading professional journals.

Keynes was greatly influenced by Alfred Marshall (1842–1924) who, besides being a brilliant and original theorist, also passionately believed that economics should contribute to human well-being and that economics students should know as much about the economic and social facts of the real world as the theoretical approaches through which they could be organised and understood.

Keynes became one the most important figures in the entire history of economics. He revolutionized economics with his classic book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). This is probably the most influential social science treatise of the XXth Century. It changed the way the world looked at the economy and the role of government in society.

Bibliography

• Keyne's full biography. Encyclopedia of World Biography
• ASIMAKOPULOS, Athanasios. Keynes's General Theory and Accumulation (Modern Cambridge Economics Series) (Print on Demand). Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN 0521368154