John Maynard Keynes

John Maynard Keynes published "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" in 1936, revolutionizing economics by showing that economies could settle into equilibrium below full employment — and that government fiscal policy could restore demand. His ideas shaped the post-WWII economic order, including Bretton Woods, the IMF, and World Bank. Keynes was also a successful investor, managing Cambridge's King's College endowment and his own portfolio with strong long-term results. He died in 1946, but his influence on macroeconomic policy remains profound. Keynes's concept of "animal spirits" — the spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction that drives investment decisions in conditions of fundamental uncertainty — anticipated modern behavioral finance by decades, providing a psychological foundation for understanding why investment spending is far more volatile than neoclassical models predicted and why confidence can be a self-fulfilling macroeconomic force.