Corden, W(arner) M(ax) 1927-

views updated

CORDEN, W(arner) M(ax) 1927-

PERSONAL: Born August 13, 1927, in Breslau, Germany; son of Ralph Simon and Katherine (Levy) Corden; married Dorothy Grace Martin (a librarian), June 1, 1957; children: Jane Margaret. Ethnicity: "White." Education: University of Melbourne, B.Commerce, 1949, M.Comm., 1953; London School of Economics, Ph.D., 1956.

ADDRESSES: Home—Melbourne, Australia. Office—Department of Economics, University of Melbourne, Victoria 2010, Australia. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, lecturer in economics, 1958-61; Australian National University, Canberra, fellow in economics, 1962-67; Nuffield College, Oxford, Oxford, England, fellow and reader in international economics, 1967-76; Australian National University, professor of economics, 1977-88; School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, professor of international economics, and Chungju Yung Distinguished fellow, 1989-2002. International Monetary Fund, senior advisor, 1986-88.

AWARDS, HONORS: Bernard Harms Prize for International Economics, Kiel Institute for International Economics, 1986; honorary D.Commerce, University of Melbourne, 1995; British Academy, fellow, 1997; named companion, Order of Australia, 2001.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with H. W. Arndt) The Australian Economy: A Volume of Readings, F. W. Cheshire, 1963.

The Theory of Protection, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1971.

Trade Policy and Economic Welfare, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1974, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

(Editor, with Gerhard Fels) Public Assistance to Industry: Protection and Subsidies in Britain and Germany, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1976.

Inflation, Exchange Rates, and the World Economy, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1977, 3rd revised edition, 1986.

Protection, Growth, and Trade: Essays in International Economics, Basil Blackwell (New York, NY), 1985.

International Trade Theory and Policy: Selected Essays, E. Elgar (Brookfield, VT), 1992.

Economic Policy, Exchange Rates, and the International System, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1994.

The Road to Reform: Essays on Australian Economic Policy, Addison-Wesley (South Melbourne, Australia), 1997.

Too Sensational: On the Choice of Exchange-Rate Regimes (Ohlin lectures), MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

Contributor to books, including Boom, Crisis, and Adjustment: The Macroeconomic Experience of Developing Countries, Economic Society of Australia, 1995. Also author of occasional papers, monographs, and other works for International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and others, including Exchange-Rate Policy in Developing Countries, World Bank (Washington, DC), 1990; Integration and Trade Policy in the Former Soviet Union, Trade Policy Division (Washington, DC), 1992; Pragmatic Orthodox: Macroeconomic Policies in Seven East Asia Economies, International Center for Economic Growth (San Francisco, CA), 1996; and The Asian Crisis: Is There a Way Out?, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore), 1999.

SIDELIGHTS: German-born international economist and educator W. M. Corden is widely respected for his views on world finance and international exchange markets. He has written widely on the Asian financial crisis that gained critical mass in the late twentieth century, and draws on the theories of economist John Maynard Keynes in much of his analysis. Despite the complexity of his topics, Corden's work has been praised for its clarity. In reviewing his 2002 book Too Sensational: On the Choice of Exchange-Rate Regimes, Southern Economic Journal contributor Edward Tower commented that Corden's "clarity and freedom from jargon is refreshing" and added that, while not for the general reader: Too Sensational "is the standard source for students who want to understand and write about exchange rate systems and, for that matter, for those who want to understand how to write."

Tenth in the series of Ohlin lectures given at the Stockholm School of Economics, Too Sensational provides Corden with the opportunity to refine his earlier concepts about fixed versus floating currency exchange rates by examining the economies of the United States, the European Monetary Union, and Japan as the currencies of these regions are affected by local politics, business cycles, and other fluctuations. Praising Corden's analysis as prudent, a Virginia Quarterly Review contributor praised Too Sensational as "the product of careful analysis and judicious reasoning."