Search results for "John H. William"
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Reshaping Monetary Policy after the Great Crash: John H. Williams at the NY FED
2020
John H. Williams was an influential economist and central banker in the interwar years. A Harvard University professor since 1929 specialized in international trade and monetary economics, he joined the NY Fed in 1933 and became its vice-President in 1936. This paper aims to provide a general assessment of Williams’ contributions to monetary and fiscal policy during his tenure at the NY FED. We shall try to do so by following a twofold perspective: i. establish connections between Williams’ more theoretical works, his interpretations of the great depression and some policy decisions enacted by the FED in the 1930s; ii. provide new archival evidence on what was the part Williams played in th…
A Scholar in Action in Interwar America: John H. Williams on Trade Theory and Bretton Woods
2009
In this paper we analyse the scientific contributions of Harvard economist John H. Williams as international trade theorist and monetary reformer together with his activities as a Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In the first 2 Sections we first present a succinct overview of Williams’ main contributions to international trade theory and to the interwar debate on the reform of the international monetary system. Particular attention will be devoted to his early academic writings which contained different critical arguments against the two main tenets of classical international economics: the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages and the gold standard. These critic…