Hendrikus Johannes "Johan" Witteveen (12 June 1921 – 23 April 2019) was a Dutch politician and economist who served as the fifth managing director of the

International Monetary Fund The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster globa ...

(IMF) from 1973 to 1978. Witteveen attended the

Gymnasium Erasmianum The Gymnasium Erasmianum is a school in Rotterdam (also known under its Dutch name "Erasmiaans Gymnasium"). History Founded in 1328, it is the second oldest school in the Netherlands with recorded date of establishment (after the Johan de Witt-g ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

from June 1933 until June 1939 and applied at the Rotterdam School of Economics in June 1939 majoring in

Economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

. On 10 May 1940

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

invaded An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

the Netherlands and the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

fled to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

to escape the

German occupation German-occupied Europe refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly occupied and civil-occupied (including puppet governments) by the military forces and the government of Nazi Germany at various times between 1939 an ...

. During the German occupation Witteveen continued his study obtaining an

Bachelor of Economics The Bachelor of Economics (BEc or BEcon), or the "Bachelor of Applied Economics", is a bachelor's degree awarded by many universities and colleges for completion of an undergraduate program in economics, econometrics, or applied economics; the ...

degree in June 1941 but in April 1943 the German occupation authority closed the Rotterdam School of Economics. Following the end of

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 ...

Witteveen returned to the Rotterdam School of Economics and worked as a student researcher before graduating with a

Master of Economics The Master of Economics (MEcon or MEc) is a postgraduate master's degree in economics comprising training in economic theory, econometrics, and/or applied economics. The degree is also offered as an MS or MSc, MA or MCom in economics; varian ...

degree in December 1945 and worked as an associate professor of

Financial economics Financial economics, also known as finance, is the branch of economics characterized by a "concentration on monetary activities", in which "money of one type or another is likely to appear on ''both sides'' of a trade".William F. Sharpe"Financial ...

at the Rotterdam School of Economics from December 1945 until July 1947 when got a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''l ...

as an

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

in Financial economics. Witteveen worked as a researcher for the

Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis The Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis ( nl, Centraal Planbureau, CPB, literal translation: Central Planning Bureau) is a part of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy of the Netherlands. Its goal is to deliver economic analysis and ...

(CPB) from April 1945 until July 1947 and as a professor of Financial economics at the Rotterdam School of Economics from July 1947 until 24 July 1963. He also served as Rector Magnificus of the Erasmus University Rotterdam from 1 January 1951 until 1 January 1952. Witteveen became a Member of the Senate after the death of Anthonie Nicolaas Molenaar, taking office on 23 December 1958 serving as a

frontbencher In many parliaments and other similar assemblies, seating is typically arranged in banks or rows, with each political party or caucus grouped together. The spokespeople for each group will often sit at the front of their group, and are then kn ...

and

spokesperson A spokesperson, spokesman, or spokeswoman, is someone engaged or elected to speak on behalf of others. Duties and function In the present media-sensitive world, many organizations are increasingly likely to employ professionals who have receiv ...

for

Finances Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of finan ...

and deputy spokesperson for

Economic Affairs An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that emphasize the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with th ...

and

Small business Small businesses are types of corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships which have fewer employees and/or less annual revenue than a regular-sized business or corporation. Businesses are defined as "small" in terms of being able to ap ...

. Witteveen was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives after the election of 1963, he subsequently resigned as a Member of the Senate the same day he was installed as Member of the House of Representatives, taking office on 5 June 1963. Following the cabinet formation of 1963 Witteveen was appointed as

Minister of Finance A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

in the Cabinet Marijnen, taking office on 24 July 1963. The Cabinet Marijnen fell on 27 February 1965 after a disagreement in the coalition about reforms to the

public broadcasting system The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

and continued to serve in a demissionary capacity until the cabinet formation of 1965 when it was replaced by the Cabinet Cals on 14 April 1965. Witteveen returned as a distinguished professor of

Public economics Public economics ''(or economics of the public sector)'' is the study of government policy through the lens of economic efficiency and equity. Public economics builds on the theory of welfare economics and is ultimately used as a tool to improve ...

at the Rotterdam School of Economics on 1 September 1965. Witteveen subsequently returned as a Member of the House of Representatives after the resignation of Lambertus Oldenbanning, taking office on 21 September 1965 serving as a frontbencher chairing the parliamentary committee for Finances and spokesperson for Finances and deputy spokesperson for Economic Affairs. After the election of 1967 Witteveen was again appointed as Minister of Finance and became

Deputy Prime Minister A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some countries, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, ...

in the Cabinet De Jong, taking office on 5 April 1967. Witteveen served as acting Minister of Economic Affairs from 7 January 1970 until 14 January 1970 following Leo de Block's resignation. In February 1971 Witteveen announced that he wouldn't stand for the election of 1971 but wanted to return to the Senate. After the Senate election of 1971 Witteveen returned as a Member of the Senate, taking office on 8 June 1971 serving as a frontbencher chairing the parliamentary committee for Finances and spokesperson for Finances and Economic Affairs. Following the cabinet formation of 1971 Witteveen per his own request asked not to be considered for a cabinet post in the new

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

, the Cabinet De Jong was replaced by the Cabinet Biesheuvel I on 6 July 1971. In August 1973 Witteveen was nominated as the next Managing Director of the

(IMF), he resigned as a Member of the Senate the same day he was installed as Managing Director, serving from 1 September 1973 until 18 June 1978. Witteveen retired after spending 20 years in national politics and became active in the

private sector The private sector is the part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is owned by private groups, usually as a means of establishment for profit or non profit, rather than being owned by the government. Employment The ...

and

public sector The public sector, also called the state sector, is the part of the economy composed of both public services and public enterprises. Public sectors include the public goods and governmental services such as the military, law enforcement, infra ...

and occupied numerous seats as a corporate director and nonprofit director on several boards of directors and supervisory boards (

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...

Tinbergen Institute The Tinbergen Institute is a joint institute for research and education in economics, econometrics and finance of the VU University Amsterdam, the University of Amsterdam, and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The institute was founded in 1987 an ...

Group of Thirty The Group of Thirty, often abbreviated to G30, is an international body of financiers and academics which aims to deepen understanding of economic and financial issues and to examine consequences of decisions made in the public and private sect ...

, Institute of International Relations Clingendael, Society for Statistics and Operations Research and the Helen Dowling Institute) and served on several state commissions and councils on behalf of the government (

SEO Economic Research SEO Amsterdam Economics'' (SEO) is a scientific institute for economic research commissioned by ministries or businesses. SEO was founded in 1949 from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abb ...

, Cadastre Agency and

Statistics Netherlands Statistics Netherlands, founded in 1899, is a Dutch governmental institution that gathers statistical information about the Netherlands. In Dutch it is known as the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek (''Central Agency for Statistics''), often ...

) and as an advocate and lobbyist for

Sufism Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, r ...

and

Financial regulation Financial regulation is a form of regulation or supervision, which subjects financial institutions to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, aiming to maintain the stability and integrity of the financial system. This may be handled ...

. Witteveen was also a prolific author, having written more than a dozen books since 1947 about

Politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

Finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

Business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

and

. Witteveen was known for his abilities as a

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

and consensus builder. Witteveen continued to comment on political affairs as a statesman until his death at the age of 97 and holds the distinction as the only Dutchman that served as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. His eldest son

Willem Willem () is a Dutch and West FrisianRienk de Haan, ''Fryske Foarnammen'', Leeuwarden, 2002 (Friese Pers Boekerij), , p. 158. masculine given name. The name is Germanic, and can be seen as the Dutch equivalent of the name William in English, Gui ...

was also a politician, professor, and author, he like his father had served in the Senate.

Early life and education

Witteveen was born on 12 June 1921 in

Zeist Zeist () is the capital and largest town of the municipality of Zeist. The town is located in the Utrecht province of the Netherlands, east of the city of Utrecht. History The town of "Seist" was first mentioned in a charter in the year 83 ...

in the

province of Utrecht Utrecht (), officially the Province of Utrecht ( nl, Provincie Utrecht, link=no), is a province of the Netherlands. It is located in the centre of the country, bordering the Eemmeer in the north-east, the province of Gelderland in the east a ...

. He is the son of architect Willem Gerrit Witteveen and Anna Maria Wibaut and the grandson of Social Democratic politician Floor Wibaut.Dr. H.J. (Johan) Witteveen
''Parlement & Politiek''. Retrieved on 19 July 2014. He went to the public secondary school

in Rotterdam. He studied economics at the Netherlands School of Economics from 1939 to 1946. He received his PhD in 1947 with the dissertation ''Loonhoogte en werkgelegenheid'' (Height of wages and employment). His advisor was Nobel Prize laureate

Jan Tinbergen Jan Tinbergen (; ; 12 April 19039 June 1994) was a Dutch economist who was awarded the first Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1969, which he shared with Ragnar Frisch for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of ...

Career

Witteveen worked as an economist at the

under

and

Fred Polak Frederik Lodewijk Polak (21 May 1907, in Amsterdam – 17 September 1985, in Wassenaar) was one of the Dutch founding fathers of futures studies, perhaps best known in the field for theorising the central role of imagined alternative futures in h ...

from 1947 until 1963. He is a member of the

People's Party for Freedom and Democracy The People's Party for Freedom and Democracy ( nl, Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie ; VVD) is a conservative-liberal Andeweg, R. and G. Irwin ''Politics and Governance in the Netherlands'', Basingstoke (Palgrave) p.49 political party in ...

(VVD). He served as a

Senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

from 23 December 1958 until 5 June 1963 and as a member of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

from 5 June 1963 until 24 July 1963. He then became

in the

Marijnen cabinet The Marijnen cabinet of the Netherlands, cabinet was the Executive (government), executive branch of the Politics of the Netherlands, Dutch Government from 24 July 1963 until 14 April 1965. The cabinet was a continuation of the previous De Quay c ...

serving from 24 July 1963 until 14 April 1965. He then served as a Member of the House of Representatives again from 21 September 1965 until 5 April 1967, when he returned as Minister of Finance and

serving from 5 April 1967 until 6 July 1971 in the

De Jong cabinet The De Jong cabinet was the executive branch of the Dutch Government from 5 April 1967 until 6 July 1971. The cabinet was formed by the christian-democratic Catholic People's Party (KVP), Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP) and Christian Historical Un ...

. He again returned to the Senate, serving from 8 June 1971 until 1 September 1973. Afterwards he became the Managing Director of the

, serving from 1 September 1973 until 18 June 1978. From 1978 to 1985 he was the first chairman of the Washington-based economics body, the

. He became member of the

Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ( nl, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, abbreviated: KNAW) is an organization dedicated to the advancement of science and literature in the Netherlands. The academy is housed ...

in 1980.

Personal life

On 3 March 1949 Witteveen married Liesbeth de Vries Feijens (born 1 April 1920). They had four children, three sons, and one daughter.

Willem Witteveen Willem Johannes Witteveen (; 5 May 195217 July 2014) was a Dutch legal scholar, politician, and author. He was a law professor at Tilburg University (1990–2014) and a Member of the Senate for the Labour Party (1999–2007; 2013–2014). He ...

(1952–2014), Paul Witteveen (1955–1979), Raoul Witteveen and their daughter (born 1960). Liesbeth de Vries Feijens died on 25 November 2006 at the age of 86. His eldest son

was also a politician, professor and author, he like his father had served in the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

. Willem Witteveen, his wife and daughter died on 17 July 2014 when

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17/MAS17) was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur that was shot down by Russian forces on 17 July 2014, while flying over eastern Ukraine. All 283 passengers and 15 crew were killed. Cont ...

was shot down over Ukraine. Witteveen was also a first cousin once removed of the in 2004 murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh. Witteveen died on 23 April 2019 in his home in

Wassenaar Wassenaar (; population: in ) is a municipality and town located in the province of South Holland, on the western coast of the Netherlands. An affluent suburb of The Hague, Wassenaar lies north of that city on the N44/A44 highway near the Nort ...

at the age of .

Decorations

Honorary degrees

References

External links

;Official *
Dr. H.J. (Johan) Witteveen
Parlement & Politiek *
Dr. H.J. Witteveen (VVD)
Eerste Kamer der Staten-Generaal {{DEFAULTSORT:Witteveen, Johan 1921 births 2019 deaths Businesspeople from Rotterdam Commanders of the Order of the Netherlands Lion Deputy Prime Ministers of the Netherlands Dutch academic administrators Dutch bankers Dutch business writers Dutch chief executives in the finance industry Dutch corporate directors Dutch essayists Dutch expatriates in the United States Dutch financial analysts Dutch financial writers Dutch health and wellness writers Dutch lobbyists Dutch memoirists Dutch nonprofit directors Dutch nonprofit executives Dutch people of World War II Dutch officials of the United Nations Dutch spiritual writers Erasmus University Rotterdam alumni Erasmus University Rotterdam faculty Financial economists Grand Crosses of the Order of the Crown (Belgium) Grand Crosses with Star and Sash of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Grand Officers of the Order of Orange-Nassau Grand Officiers of the Légion d'honneur Honorary Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire Ināyati Sufis International economists Managing directors of the International Monetary Fund Members of the House of Representatives (Netherlands) Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Members of the Senate (Netherlands) Members of the Social and Economic Council Monetarists Ministers of Economic Affairs of the Netherlands Ministers of Finance of the Netherlands Politicians from Rotterdam People from Wassenaar People from Zeist People's Party for Freedom and Democracy politicians Public economists Recipients of the Four Freedoms Award Rectors of universities in the Netherlands Vice Chairmen of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy Writers from Rotterdam 20th-century Dutch civil servants 20th-century Dutch economists 20th-century Dutch male writers 20th-century Dutch politicians 21st-century Dutch economists 21st-century Dutch male writers