Sir Alec Cairncross

Sir Alexander Kirkland "Alec" Cairncross KCMG FBA FRSE (11 February 1911 – 21 October 1998) was a British economist. He was the brother of the spy John Cairncross and father of journalist Frances Cairncross and public health engineer and epidemiologist Sandy Cairncross.

Cairncross was born in Lesmahagow, Lanarkshire, the seventh of eight children of Alexander Kirkland Cairncross, an ironmonger. He was educated at Hamilton Academy, then won two scholarships to study economics at Glasgow University. From there, he attained a further research studentship to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, whence in 1935 he was awarded only the second PhD in economics bestowed by the university.

He became a lecturer in economics, under the considerable influence of John Maynard Keynes (author of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and one of the leading lights of the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference, which saw the founding of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund). During World War II, most of his work was in the Ministry of Aircraft Production, where he rose to become Director of Programmes. In 1946 he served briefly on the staff of The Economist, and subsequently became adviser to the Board of Trade. He was seconded to be the economic adviser to the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in Paris in 1949. and he left to become Professor of Applied Economics at his old university, Glasgow, in 1951.

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