John Maynard Birthday & Fun Facts

John Maynard Birthday Highlights

Birth Name

John Keynes

Place Of Birth

Cambridge, UK

Age

140 years old

Birth Date

June 4 1883

John Maynard Facts

Child Star?

no

Occupation

Economist

Education & Qualifications

Cambridge University

Net Worth

$15,000,000

Current Partner

Lydia Lopokova

Parents

John Neville Keynes, Florence Ada Keynes

Siblings

Margaret Neville Keynes, Geoffrey Keynes

English economist John Maynard Keynes, first Baron Keynes, is not only known for founding Keynesian economics. He is also considered to be the father of modern macroeconomics along with how economics in markets and other large scales behave.

In Keynesian economics, John Maynard Keynes has argued that demand requires supply, and healthy functioning economies invest more than savings. So, to boost consumption during a recession, governments should spend more, even if it means they are in debt.

As a result of his theory, John Maynard was criticized as it promoted deficit spending, stifled private investment, and caused inflation. It did not matter because his theories have been reformulated as New Keynesianism, which is fundamental to macroeconomics.

What was John Maynard's net worth?

John Maynard is estimated to have had a net worth of $15 million at the time of his death.

How much did John Maynard earn per year?

The exact figures of John Maynard Keynes' annual income are not available to the media.

How tall was John Maynard?

John Maynard Keynes was 6 ft 7 in (201 cm) tall.

How old was John Maynard?

John Maynard Keynes was born in Cambridge, England, on June 5, 1883. He died on April 21, 1946, in Tilton, near Firle in Sussex. He was 62 at the time of his death. The cause of his death was a heart attack.

Born in Cambridge, John Maynard Keynes's parents were John Neville Keynes and Florence Ada Keynes. His father was a moral sciences lecturer at the prestigious University of Cambridge. His father was also an economist. His mother was a local social reformer. John Maynard Keynes was their first child, and he has two younger siblings - his sister Margaret Neville Keynes and his brother Geoffrey Keynes, a surgeon.

John Maynard got scholarships to Eton College and Cambridge University, where he graduated in Mathematics. He was trained in Mathematics, but he never received formal training in Economics. So, after his graduation, he spent two years at Cambridge University and participated in debates, studied philosophy, and informally attended economics lectures. This was his only form of education in economics.

Who was John Maynard's partner?

John Maynard Keynes fell in love with a well-known Russian ballerina, Lydia Lopokova. They got married in 1925. They did not have any children as they went through an unhappy union.

Best Known For…

British influential economist John Maynard is known for being the founder of macroeconomics as well as for formulating several government economic policies. Also, he was the first economist to predict that technological changes and other factors would eventually lead to a 15-hour work week.

When the Great Depression hit in the '30s after the stock market crash, John Maynard Keynes led a revolution in economic thinking, which challenged neoclassical economic ideas. Neoclassical economics upheld that the free markets would provide employment in the short to medium term if workers had rationale in their wage demands. His revolution, known as Keynesian Revolution, aimed at fundamentally refurbishing the economic theory involving factors that determined employment levels in the overall economy. To support his case, John Maynard Keynes stated that the total expense of the economy could gauge the overall economic activity. If this expense is inadequate, then it could give rise to long periods of unemployment. If this happens, the factor of labor wages being rigid downwards will come in, which would obstruct from bouncing back to full employment.

So, John Maynard suggested implementing monetary and fiscal policies to alleviate the unwanted effects of economic recessions and depressions, and these ideas were published in his magnum opus, 'The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.' In this book, which is considered to be one of the most influential economics books, he advocated government intervention as a solution to increasing unemployment.

When the Great Depression was at its peak, John Maynard Keynes published the book, 'The Means to Prosperity,' which spoke about ways and policies to handle unemployment during the global recession.

John Maynard started his career in the Civil Service as a clerk in the India Office, but this did not excite him. So, he returned to Cambridge and worked on probability theory, which was through an economics lectureship that was funded by economists Arthur Pigou and Alfred Marshall. Then, in 1909, he became a fellow at King's College.

John Maynard published his first article on the effects of a global economic turndown in India in The Economic Journal in 1909. Later, in 1911, he became the editor of The Economic Journal. This was followed by his first book, 'Indian Currency and Finance,' which he published in 1913.

At the Royal Commission, John Maynard was quite adept at practically implementing theories that could potentially solve problems. Similarly, his expertise was sought by the British Government during the First World War. He was sent to London before the hostilities. Bankers went for suspending specie payments, but John Maynard Keynes persuaded the then chancellor of the Exchequer, Llyod George, to not go for this, as it might affect the reputation of London.

From the beginning of 1915, John Maynard Keynes started working for the government at the Treasury, where he had to form the credit terms between Britain and its allies in the war. Here, he showed great nerved and mastery, as he amassed enough pesetas that would be a temporary fix for the British Government and could solve the British economy. Also, he refused to hand over the pesetas and instead sold them to break the market. John Maynard Keynes got his major break when he was appointed the financial consultant to the Treasury for the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference. Here, he deduced a plan that he thought would not only help Germany and other central European powers but would also be beneficial for the global economy. However, his efforts were not acknowledged, and the conference result disgusted his moral and economic viewpoints, and thus, he resigned from the Treasury.

John Maynard Keynes published an analysis of the effects of the treaty in his book, 'The Economic Consequences of the Peace,' where his qualities as an economist as well as a philanthropist were highly evident. It is considered to be his best book.

After this, John Maynard published his book, 'A Treatise on Probability' in 1921. This book dealt with the philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of his probability theory, where he concluded that probabilities were nothing but truth values intermediate between truth and falsity.

In 1925, the Bank of England and The Treasury were in support of the gold standard, and they persuaded Winston Churchill to re-establish it. But John Maynard Keynes refuted it through his piece, The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, which ultimately led the government to abandon the gold standard in 1931. During this time, several economies started to adopt Keynesian principles.

Even in the Second World War, John Keynes had a significant role to play. In his book, 'How to Pay for the War,' he said that the war should be funded by higher taxation. Additionally, there should be compulsory saving and not deficit spending (which he had suggested during World War I) to avoid inflation. In World War II, as Allies began winning, John Maynard Keynes got majorly involved, as he was the leader of the British delegation and the World Bank commission Chairman. He argued for a radical system to manage the currencies of the nations, for which he suggested the establishment of a common unit of currency, called The Bancor, along with the formation of global institutions, like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

After the war ended, John Keynes still represented Britain in international negotiations, although his health was deteriorating.

Overall, John Maynard Keynes had a unique viewpoint and motives for his philosophical and economic contributions. He always had the approach to find a solution that would be optimal to the persistent problem, rather than cribbing about it. The Great Depression is the most significant example. Through his works, John Maynard has repeatedly highlighted the fact that people make decisions during desperate times that might affect the business cycles, so they need to change their approach so that the country can get out of recession. John Maynard Keynes has a point of view much different from that of Karl Marx, who primarily critiqued the unfairness of the prevalent system.

Two decades after John Maynard Keynes died in 1946, and many capitalist governments adopted his policies.

What awards did John Maynard win?

TIME magazine tagged John Maynard as one of the 'Most Important People of the Century' in 1999. Also, the British paper 'The Economist' described him as 'Britain's Most Famous 20th Century Economist.

• On July 7, 1942, John Maynard received the title, Baron Keynes of Tilton, in the Country of Sussex, and then he went on to be a member of the House of Lords for the Liberal Party.

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