The ILO Economists and International Economic Policy in the Interwar Years

We survey the published work of the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) economic secretariat during the interwar years, and conclude that ILO economists were in the vanguard of a stream of economic thought which regularly questioned orthodox economics. The ILO economists presented clear policy prescriptions on all major economic questions of the day: the operation of monetary policy by central banks, the attainment of price stability and employment stabilization, responses to the early 1930s economic crisis, and the role of public works and expenditure in supplementing aggregate demand. This research was always innovative, and provided a distinctive voice in economic debate by focusing on the labour and international implications of interwar economic policies.