Sir Richard Hopkins and the "Keynesian Revolution" in Employment Policy, 1929-1945.

The article examines the role of Richard Hopkins, secretary of the Treasury of Great Britain in applying Keynesian economics in the employment policy of the British government from 1929 to 1945. During this period, official attitudes to employment policy changed to a degree which economist John Maynard Keynes regarded as revolutionary. In 1944, on the other hand, the government issued a White Paper accepting responsibility for the maintenance of a high and stable level of employment after the war, and stated its belief that in the past the power of public expenditure, skillfully applied, to check the onset of a depression has been underestimated. Moreover, whereas down to 1940 the budget had been concerned only with cash accounting for central government revenue and expenditure. The 1941 budget, with its accompanying White Paper on national income and expenditure, introduced a national accounting analytical framework which Keynes described as a revolution in public finance. Aggregate demand management was first adopted to deal with wartime inflation.