John Maynard Keynes was born in Cambridge, England, and studied at Cambridge University. From 1915 to 1919, Keynes was on staff at the British Treasury. He was its principal representative at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. That same year Keynes published The Economic Consequences of Peace, in which he argued against imposing huge financial penalties on Germany after World War I. Between World War I and World War II, Keynes worked as a financial adviser in London and taught at Cambridge University. His views on a planned economy influenced President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. During World War II, Keynes played a central role in British war finance. In 1944 he was the chief British representative at the Bretton Woods Conference that established the International Monetary Fund. Keynes is probably best known for his economic theory that recovery from a recession is best achieved by a government-sponsored policy of full employment. He wrote several books, including A Revision of the Treaty (1922), The End of Laissez-Faire (1926), A Treatise on Money (1930), The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1935), and How to Pay for the War (1940).
