From the Hague to Geneva: The World Order of the League of Nations

In the 1930s two studies were published by the League of Nations which both had a large influence on the development of economics. The first was a report on the theories of the business cycle by Gottfried von Haberler, the second one a statistical test of the various theories of the business cycle by Jan Tinbergen. This paper studies the institutional context in which these two studies, and in particular that of Tinbergen, were drafted. It argues that they are best understood as outcomes of joint work under the supervision of Alexander Loveday and Dennis Robertson, and with the help of various assistants, co-authors and expert committees. Although commissioned and published under the names of particular authors and typically understood as monographs, the studies are better understood as attempts to create expert consensus. This is demonstrated through a detailed study of the writing of the Tinbergen report. The process demonstrates at once the various co-authors and internal critics involved and the contested nature of virtually all aspects of the study, as well as the potency of this new collaborative teamwork without which the study would have been impossible. The fact that this report was meant to forge expert consensus means that the infamous critique by John Maynard Keynes of both studies should be understood, at least in part, as a challenge to the League of Nations as an institution, and this new type of consensual expert knowledge more broadly.