Jack Downie (September 1919 – 1963) was a British economist who is famous for writing ''The Competitive Process''. Nightingale discusses the "short but brilliant career" of economist Jack Downie, emphasising the importance of his theory of ''The Competitive Process'' for many who rejecting orthodox theory when modeling of industry behavior.John Nightingale. History of Political Economy. Fall 1998. Vol. 30, Iss. 3; pg. 369, 44 He was born in September 1919 in

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, UK, and attended New College at Oxford in 1938. He was in the

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, returning to New College in 1946. He took his finals in 1947, graduating with first-class honors in PPE. In 1947 he joined the civil service, working first in the economic section of the cabinet office, and then at

HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury), occasionally referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and ec ...

. His colleagues included Robert Hall, Marcus Fleming, Nitta Watts, David Bensusan-Butt,

Christopher Dow John Christopher Roderick Dow, FBA (1916–1998) was a British applied economist whose career ran from 1945 until his death in 1998. He was educated at Bootham School, York and University College London. During his career he worked in some o ...

, Kit Jones, Fred Atkinson, Robert Neild, Peggy Hemming, and Bryan Hopkin and his close friends included

Nicholas Kaldor Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Cambridge economist in the post-war period. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939), d ...

and Tommy Balogh. Downie over the period 1952-54 was on secondment from his civil service job, in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...

at the

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE or UNECE) is one of the five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. It was established in order to promote economic cooperation and i ...

. Following his return to the UK he took up a research grant at the Oxford Institute of Statistics, where he wrote work that made his name: The Competitive Process (1958). Downie returned to the treasury during 1956, where one of his achievements was to provide the theoretical basis of the treasury evidence to the Radcliffe Committee. As well, his involvement in macroeconomic policy advising took him, with Hall, into the long and disturbed development of proposals for prices and incomes policies. These were perhaps the first peacetime attempts to make policy specifically to loosen the inflationary and external imbalance constraints on economic growth created by relatively long periods of full employment. In 1961, Downie became the Assistant Secretary General in charge of Economics and Statistics at the

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD; french: Organisation de coopération et de développement économiques, ''OCDE'') is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental organisation with 38 member countries ...

(OECD) in Paris. He was at the OECD for just two years when he died.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Downie, Jack 1919 births Alumni of New College, Oxford 1963 deaths 20th-century British economists British Army personnel of World War II Royal Artillery personnel Military personnel from Lancashire