Economists in the Cold War: How a Handful of Economists Fought the Battle of Ideas

Economists in the Cold War is an account of the economic drivers and outcomes of the Cold War, told through the stories of seven international economists, who were all closely involved in theory and policy in the period 1945-73. For them, the Cold War was a battle of economic ideas, a fight between central planning and market allocation, exploring economic thinking derived from the battle between Marxist and Capitalist ideologies, a fundamental difference but with many intricacies.

The book recounts how economic theory advanced, how new economic tools were developed, and how policies were tested. Each chapter is based on the involvement of one of the selected economists. It was a challenging but dangerous time in a time of economic recovery post-war, with industrial rebuilding, economic growth, and rising incomes. But it was also a time of ideological warfare, nuclear rivalry, military expansion, and personal conflict.

The narrative is approximately chronological, ranging from the Potsdam Conference in Germany to the Pinochet Coup in Chile. The selected economists include an American, a Pole, a Hungarian, a German, a British, a Japanese, and an Argentinian, all very different economists, but with interconnections among them. Each chapter also features a dissenting economist who held a contrasting view, and recounts the subsequent economic arguments that played out.