John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes was a British economist whose 1936 book The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money reshaped twentieth century economic thought and gave Keynesian economics its name. Writing in the aftermath of the Great Depression, Keynes argued that an economy can become stuck at a level of output too low to employ everyone willing to work, because total spending in the economy can fall short of what full employment would require, and that active government spending and monetary policy could be used to close that gap. Keynes was also a central figure in international economic diplomacy, leading the British delegation to the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference and proposing an international clearing union that, although not adopted in the form he wanted, shaped the debate that produced the postwar Bretton Woods monetary system and the institutions that grew out of it.