Hawtrey and Keynes

Abstract

R. G. Hawtrey, like his younger contemporary J. M. Keynes, was a Cambridge graduate in mathematics, an Apostle, deeply influenced by the Cambridge philosopher G. E. Moore, attached, if only peripherally, to the Bloomsbury group, and largely an autodidact in economics. Both entered the British Civil Service shortly after graduation, publishing their first books on economics in 1913. Though eventually overshadowed by Keynes, Hawtrey, after publishing Currency and Credit in 1919, was in the front rank of monetary economists in the world and a major figure at the 1922 Genoa International Monetary Conference planning for a restoration of the international gold standard. This essay explores their relationship during the 1920s and 1930s, focusing on their interactions concerning the plans for restoring an international gold standard immediately after World War I, the 1925 decision to restore the convertibility of sterling at the prewar dollar parity, Hawtrey’s articulation of what became known as the Treasury view, Hawtrey’s commentary on Keynes’s Treatise on Money, including his exposition of the multiplier, Keynes’s questioning of Hawtrey after his testimony before the Macmillan Committee, their differences over the relative importance of the short-term and long-term rates of interest as instruments of monetary policy, Hawtrey’s disagreement with Keynes about the causes of the Great Depression, and finally the correspondence between Keynes and Hawtrey while Keynes was writing the General Theory, a correspondence that failed to resolve theoretical differences culminating in Hawtrey’s critical review of the General Theory and their 1937 exchange in the Economic Journal.