RUEFF, JACQUES

RUEFF, JACQUES (1896–1978), French economist. Born in Paris, during World War i he served with the French liaison team for the American Expeditionary Force. In 1923 he qualified as an inspector of finance and in 1926 joined the personal staff of Raymond Poincaré, who was both prime minister and finance minister. In 1927 he went to the League of Nations where he worked on monetary reform for Greece, Bulgaria, and Portugal, and then moved to London as financial attaché of the French embassy. In 1934 Rueff returned to the Finance Ministry again, concerned with the stabilization of the French currency. At the outbreak of World War ii, Rueff was vice governor of the Bank of France, but resigned a year later to rejoin the government finance inspection service. After World War ii, he was concerned with reparations, first for France, and then as head of the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency in Brussels. From 1958 to 1962, he sat on the Court of European Communities in Luxemburg, for the second half of the period as its chief justice. Informally he was the financial counselor to De Gaulle and was instrumental in designing France's successful 1958 reform. In 1964 Rueff was elected to the Académie Française, one of the few economists so honored. Over the years, his major concern was the advocacy of monetary discipline, and advising France and other countries to return to the gold standard to prevent depreciation and inflation.

Rueff was a prolific author. His major publications include: Des Sciences physiques aux sciences morales (1922); From the Physical to the Social Sciences (1929); Sur une théorie de l'inflation (2 vols., 1925); L'Ordre social (1945); Epître aux dirigistes (1949); La régulation monétaire et le problème institutionnel de la monnaie (1953); Discours sur le crédit (1962, 1967³); L'Age de l'inflation (1963; The Age of Inflation, 1964); and Les Dieux et les rois (1967).

bibliography:

Current Biography, 30 (Feb. 1969), 31–34.

[Joachim O. Ronall]