James Meade

In 1933, James Meade married Margaret Wilson. The couple had four children; one son and three daughters.

He died on 22 December 1995, at Cambridge, at the age of 88.

James Meade was born on 23 June 1907, at Swanage, a coastal town in England.

He attended Lambrook School between 1917 and 1921 after which he got enrolled in Malvern College and studied there till 1926. Until 1926, his education was focused on learning Greek and Latin languages.

In 1926 he joined Oriel College, Oxford where he continued classical education for two years and then shifted to the then newly founded School of Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

He was offered a fellowship that allowed him to continue his post graduate studies in Economics at the Hertford College at Oxford. During the same time he received an invitation from economist Dennis Robertson to join Trinity College, Cambridge for the year 1930-1931. He subsequently joined Trinity College, Cambridge.

It was while studying at the Trinity College that he got acquainted with economists Piero Sraffa, Austin Robinson, Richard Kahn and Joan Robinson. They together formed the group named ‘Cambridge Circus’. The group met and discussed John Maynard Keynes' publication titled ‘A Treatise on Money’ and provided feedback on Keynes's continuing theoretical work.

In 1931, James Meade was appointed as lecturer at Hertford College in Oxford. He taught there until 1937. He along with other economists in the University, such as, Henry Phelps Brown, Roy Harrod, Lindley Fraser and Robert Hall began teaching economics as a regular subject. This was a novel concept in the university.

James Meade was assigned to teach the complete subject of economic theory. Two subjects that were of particular interest to him were International economics and economics of mass-unemployment.

During that time Oxford University had strong influence on the League of Nations Union and, in 1937, James Meade joined the Economic Section of the League of Nations in Geneva. He served as the editor of the ‘World Economic Survey’ and published the seventh and eighth editions.

In 1940, after the onset of the Second World War, he along with family was forced to leave Geneva and shift to England. In England, he became the member of the Economic Section of the War Cabinet Secretariat. He became the Director in 1946 and remained a member until 1947.

He worked under the guidance of Lionel Robbins along with John Maynard Keynes towards solving everyday economic issues like rationing of food items and deciding pricing policies for nationalized industries.

James Meade was an economist whose work on global economic policy earned him much appreciation. He is particularly known for his work on the theory of international trade and international capital movements. He was the author of several noteworthy books in economics like ‘National Income and Expenditure’, ‘Efficiency, Equality, and the Ownership of Property’ and ‘Demand Management’. His book, ‘Theory of International Economic Policy’, is regarded as bible by every trade economist.