ABSTRACT
A very young recruit to the Economic Section in November 1941 was somewhat surprised that her first assignment was to assist two of her senior colleagues 1 in their attempt to estimate the post-war balance of payments – assuming that the war could end, satisfactorily, on 31 December 1943! In fact, a considerable amount of work on post-war problems, opportunities, and policies had got under way in the Section during 1941. In February, at the suggestion of Jewkes, Meade produced a paper for discussion within the Section outlining:
four fundamental groups of problems needing urgent attention after the war:
the problem of unemployment;
the problem of assuring a reasonable national minimum standard of living to each citizen and of achieving an equitable distribution of the national income;
the problem of determining the forms of post-war industrial structure – free competition, self-government of industry and public control of industry; and
the problem of re-establishing trading and financial relations with the rest of the world. 2
