ABSTRACT
On December 29, 1926, in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the annual meetings of the American Economic Association were taking place that year, the association’s president, Edwin W. Kemmerer, a renowned international financial expert, delivered an address which he emphasized was not “epoch making.” But his talk on “economic advisory work for foreign governments” takes on, with hindsight, a considerable significance. Kemmerer – the “money doctor” par excellence – was giving a casual discussion of his practice, reviewing
the field of work usually covered, the method of work which has been found to give the best results; the attitude of the governments and the public toward foreign advisers; the extent to which the advice given is followed; and the type of economic fallacies which most obstruct the work of foreign advisers.
