John James Cowperthwaite
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The Honourable Sir John James Cowperthwaite KBE, CMG |
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| Financial Secretary of Hong Kong | |
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In office 17 April 1961 – 30 June 1971 |
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| Governor | Sir Robert Black Sir David Trench |
| Preceded by | Arthur Grenfell Clarke |
| Succeeded by | Charles Philip Haddon-Cave |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
25 April 1915 Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Died | 21 January 2006 (aged 90) Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom |
| Spouse(s) | Sheila Mary Thomson |
| Children | John James Hamish Cowperthwaite |
| Alma mater |
Merchiston Castle School St Andrews University Christ's College, Cambridge |
Sir John James Cowperthwaite, KBE, CMG (Chinese: 郭伯偉爵士; 25 April 1915 – 21 January 2006), was a British civil servant and the Financial Secretary of Hong Kong from 1961 to 1971. His introduction of free market economic policies are widely credited with turning postwar Hong Kong into a thriving global financial centre.
Cowperthwaite attended Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, Scotland, and later studied classics at St Andrews University and Christ's College, Cambridge. He joined the British Colonial Administrative Service in Hong Kong in 1941, but left briefly during World War II to a posting in Sierra Leone.
He returned to Hong Kong in 1945 and continued to rise through the ranks. He was asked to find ways in which the government could boost post-war economic outlook but found the economy was recovering swiftly without any government intervention. He took the lesson to heart and positive non-interventionism became the focus of his economic policy as Financial Secretary. He refused to collect economic statistics to avoid officials meddling in the economy. According to Catherine R. Schenk, Cowperthwaite's policies helped it to develop from one of the poorest places on earth to one of the wealthiest and most prosperous: "Low taxes, lax employment laws, absence of government debt, and free trade are all pillars of the Hong Kong experience of economic development." The Economic Freedom of the World 2015 Report ranks Hong Kong as both the freest economy in the world, a distinction it has held since this index began ranking countries in 1975, and among the most prosperous.
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