REVELL, J(ohn) R(obert) S(tephen) 1920-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born April 15, 1920, in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England; died November 4, 2004, in Cambridge, England. Economist, educator, and author. Revell was an innovative economist with socialist leanings who advocated more egalitarian banking practices and more governmental supervision of financial institutions in England. Graduating from the London School of Economics in 1950 and earning his master's degree from Cambridge University ten years later, his first professional job was working for the Soviet news agency Tass as a researcher. His early belief in communism was shattered by the Soviet Communist Party's dictatorial methods, and he finally left the party in 1956 after the USSR invaded Hungary. He next became a senior research officer in the department of applied economics at Cambridge from 1957 until 1968. At the same time, he was director of studies in economics at Selwyn College, Cambridge, from 1960 until 1965, and director of studies in economics for Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, from 1964 to 1967. He was a tutor at Fitzwilliam from 1965 to 1967, senior tutor from 1967 to 1968, and a fellow from 1965 to 1968. Leaving Cambridge, he became professor of economics at the University of Wales, Bangor, where he remained until his 1983 retirement. Although he left the classroom behind, he remained active for many more years as a prolific author of economics books. Many of his colleagues now consider Revell to have been decades ahead of his time when it came to such ideas as bank regulation and the importance of measuring the capital adequacy of financial institutions to ensure their stability. He also believed that a country's economy is better served when it does not practice "financial exclusion"; that is, limiting the lower classes' access to financial products. Many of his concerns are only now being addressed in the "Basel 2" standards of banking supervision that are to be enforced in Britain beginning in 2007. Revell published dozens of books in his lifetime, including Changes in British Banking: The Growth of a Secondary Banking System (1968), Solvency and Regulation of Banks (1975), Mergers and the Role of Large Banks (1987), and Changes in West European Public Banks (1991).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Independent (London, England), November 26, 2004,
p. 43.