International Organizations and the Analysis of Economic Policy, 1919-1950 (Historical Perspectives on Modern Economics)

From the end of World War I through the early years of the Cold War, international organizations such as the League of Nations, International Labor Organization, the Bank for International Settlements, and the United Nations had a major influence on policies adopted among member nations. This book surveys ideas produced by those organizations on such vital matters as the international business cycle; trade policy; social policy; public expenditure; taxation and government investment activity; money and exchange rate management; wage setting and full employment and the rich country-poor country divide. The work reveals explicit normative agendas underlying international political economy, and lessons are distilled for today's debates on international economic integration. Cover 1 Half-title 3 Series-title 5 Title 7 Copyright 8 Contents 9 Figures and Tables 12 Abbreviations 13 Preface 15 1 Economics and Policy in International Organizations: Introduction 17 PROLOGUE: A PERSPECTIVE ON THE LITERATURE 17 ECONOMICS AND POLICY IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ISSUES 20 THE IDEATIONAL CONTEXT OF RESEARCH IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS FROM 1919 25 2 Business Cycles: Conceptions, Causes, and Implications 33 INTELLECTUAL SETTING IN THE 1920s 33 THE ILO-LEAGUE RESEARCH PROGRAM ON CRISES AND CYCLES TO 1931 34 REFLECTIONS ON THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS CYCLE: FURTHER ANALYTICAL WORK IN THE 1930s 46 TOWARD A KEYNESIAN REORIENTATION FOR BUSINESS-CYCLE ANALYSIS AND POLICY IN THE 1940s 58 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 70 3 The Role and Conduct of Monetary Policy in the 1920s and 1930s 74 DOCTRINAL SUPPORT FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CONFERENCES IN THE EARLY 1920s 74 A DISTINCTIVE ILO PERSPECTIVE ON THE APPROPRIATE MONETARY POLICY FRAMEWORK 77 THE ILO MONETARY POLICY RULES 82 POSTSCRIPT: THE ILO CONTRIBUTION TO MONETARY POLICY ANALYSIS IN THE 1920s 85 INTERNATIONAL MONETARY ORGANIZATION AND POLICY: IDEAS EMERGING AT THE LON AND BIS IN THE 1930s 87 THE ILO’s DEPARTURE FROM MONETARY POLICY ORTHODOXY IN THE 1930s 91 4 Public Investment Programs in the Interwar Period: Pre-Keynesian, Proto-Keynesian, and Keynesian Perspectives 97 INTRODUCTION 97 A PRE-KEYNESIAN PUBLIC WORKS STRATEGY FOR THE 1920s 98 CHALLENGES TO PRE-KEYNESIAN DOCTRINE ON PUBLIC WORKS 103 THE 1932 ILO RESOLUTION REGARDING PUBLIC WORKS: TOWARD GLOBAL ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION 110 CONCLUSION 118 5 Trade Policy Research: Geneva Doctrine and the Scandinavian Connection 121 INTRODUCTION 121 THE WORLD ECONOMIC CONFERENCE AND OHLIN’S LEAGUE OF NATIONS REPORT 122 DISTURBANCES TO INTERNATIONAL EQUILIBRIUM: LEAGUE ASSESSMENTS IN THE 1930s 128 FOLKE HILGERDT’S PIONEERING CALCULATIONS AND REVISIONS IN GENEVA TRADE POLICY DOCTRINE 135 FREER TRADE, INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS, AND MACROECONOMIC MANAGEMENT 141 GENEVA TRADE POLICY RESEARCH: CAPSULE SUMMARY 146 6 Social Economics at the ILO: Scope, Content, and Significance 149 INTRODUCTION 149 INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE AND DEBATE ON SOCIAL INSURANCE UP TO THE 1930s: THE ILO PERSPECTIVE 152 UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE: A CASE STUDY 154 WAGES AND WAGES POLICY: MICROECONOMIC ISSUES 159 Minimum Wages: ILO Preconceptions and Implications from Applied Research 159 Wage Determination and Wage Structures 162 Real Income Wages Across Countries 165 Interrelations between Real Product Wages, Employment, and Unemployment 171 CHANGING THE LINKS BETWEEN SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC POLICY AND THE NEW SOCIAL SECURITY VISION 176 7 International Finance and Exchange Rate Policy 183 INTRODUCING NURKSE’S PIVOTAL WORK ON CURRENCIES AND INFLATION 183 ADJUSTMENT PROBLEMS IN THE CRISIS PHASE WITHOUT INTERNATIONAL RULES 185 EXCHANGE MARKET DISTURBANCES AND THE RATIONALE FOR AN EXCHANGE RATE RULE 193 THE POSTWAR INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM: STABILIZATION RULES FOR THREE MAIN DIMENSIONS OF ECONOMIC POLICY 198 Exchange Rate Policy 199 Fiscal and Monetary Policy Rules 202 International Lending Policy 205 TOWARD INTERNATIONAL COORDINATION OF MACROECONOMIC POLICIES 207 CONCLUSION 212 8 The Full Employment Movement from the 1940s 214 INTRODUCTION 214 EMPLOYMENT POLICY IN WARTIME AND THE TRANSITION TO PEACE 215 THE RISE OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS: THE RICH-COUNTRY-POOR-COUNTRY DEBATE 224 DIMENSIONS OF THE FULL EMPLOYMENT OBLIGATION 229 Devising Full Employment Policies for a New World Order 229 Frictional Unemployment 234 The Developing Country Case 236 Demand-Deficient Unemployment 238 CONTEMPORARY EVALUATION OF THE ILO AND UN FULL EMPLOYMENT REPORTS 243 General Framework 244 Automacity versus Discretion 245 Controls versus Market Forces 247 Relationship between Full Employment and other UN Objectives 248 CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS ON THE FULL EMPLOYMENT LITERATURE 250 9 Conclusion 253 CHARACTERIZING POLICY ANALYSIS PRODUCED FOR INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 255 ON THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 260 REFLECTING ON PRINCIPAL INTELLECTUAL (AND OTHER) INFLUENCES 264 NORMATIVE AGENDAS FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY 1919–1950 268 INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AS A DOMINANT THEME TO 1950 270 References 275 Index 299 This book enlarges our understanding of the distinctive policy analysis produced between 1919 and 1950 by economists and other social scientists for four major international organizations, namely: the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, the Bank for International Settlements, and the United Nations. These practitioners included some of the twentieth century's most eminent economists, including Cassel, Haberler, Kalecki, Meade, Morgenstern, Nurkse, Ohlin, Tinbergen, and Viner. Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes also influenced the work of these organizations. Topics covered include: the relationship between economics and policy analysis in international organizations; business cycle research; the role and conduct of monetary policy; public investment; trade policy; social and labor economics; international finance; the coordination problem in international macroeconomic policy; full employment economics, and the rich country-poor country debate. The work makes explicit the normative agendas underlying international political economy, and lessons are distilled for today's debates on international economic integration This 2002 book expands our understanding of the distinctive policy analysis produced between 1919 and 1950 by economists and other social scientists for four major international organizations: the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, the Bank for International Settlements, and the United Nations. These practitioners included some of the twentieth century's eminent economists, including Cassel, Haberler, Kalecki, Meade, Morgenstern, Nurkse, Ohlin, Tinbergen, and Viner. Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes also influenced the work of these organizations. Topics covered include: the relationship between economics and policy analysis in international organizations; business cycle research; the role and conduct of monetary policy; public investment; trade policy; social and labor economics; international finance; the coordination problem in international macroeconomic policy; full employment economics; and the rich-country-poor-country debate. Normative agendas underlying international political economy are made explicit, and lessons are distilled for today's debates on international economic integration. This book enlarges our understanding of policy analysis produced in 1919-1949 by economists and other social scientists for four international organizations: the League of Nations, the International Labor Organization, the Bank for International Settlements, and the United Nations. Such practitioners include: Cassel, Haberler, Kalecki, Meade, Morgenstern, Nurkse, Tinbergen, and Viner In the early twentieth century, John A. Hobson's Toward International Government (1915) reflected hopefully on the prospects for realizing the ideal of a "world community" or of "a society of nations" through the creation of an international organization.

an Analysis Of Economic Policy For Four Major International Organisations In The First Half Of The 20th Century.