A great loss for Britain

This month saw the death of one of Britain's most colourful and inspiring economists: Wynne Godley.

Godley was often described as a maverick because his views differed from those of the mainstream. He became an economist after giving up a career as a professional oboe player. I have written about him before, here and here.

Godley headed the Cambridge Economic Policy Group (CEPG) from 1971 until 1982, when its funding was cynically withdrawn because Margaret Thatcher's government didn't like its messages. He was nicknamed "Cassandra" because of his pessimistic predictions.

Unlike the original Cassandra, however, Godley wasn't always right with his pessimism. But he was one of the few economists to consistently predict that the borrowing and spending orgy of the past decade — particularly in the United States — was going to end in tears.

I had been inspired by Godley's commentaries before going to Cambridge to study economics in 1977. But when I heard him speak in public, I was dreadfully disappointed by his nervous, almost inaudible mumblings. Some people are simply better on paper.

Since Godley's death on 13 May, at the age of 83, many fascinating and touching obituaries have been written, including this one by William Keegan for The Guardian.

The Times obituary wrote of Godley's last book, Monetary Economics: "The key is internal accounting consistency and completeness. There must be no dustbins or black holes. Every financial flow must come from somewhere and go to somewhere, and over time these flows must translate into matching changes in stocks of physical and financial assets."

Equally fascinating is Godley's brutally honest account — in an article for the London Review of Books in 2001 — of his mistreatment at the hands of one of London's leading psychoanalysts in the 1950s. The article won him the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Award for Excellence in Journalism.

The economics world is immeasurably poorer for Godley's death. I shall pay my personal tribute to him by re-reading one of his papers on my visit to Cambridge this week.