James Edward Meade, (23 June 1907 – 22 December 1995) was a British economist and winner of the 1977 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences jointly with the Swedish economist Bertil Ohlin for their "pathbreaking contribution to the theory of international trade and international capital movements". Meade was born in Swanage, Dorset. He was educated at Malvern College and attended Oriel College, Oxford in 1926 to read Greats, but switched to Philosophy, Politics, and Economics and gained an outstanding first. His interest in economics grew from an influential postgraduate year at Christ's College, Cambridge and Trinity College, Cambridge (1930–31), where he held frequent discussions with leading economists of the time including Dennis Robertson and John Maynard Keynes. After working in the League of Nations and the Cabinet Office, he was the leading economist of the early years of Clement Attlee's government, before taking professorships at the London School of Economics (1947–1957) and the University of Cambridge (1957–1967). Early life and education Meade was born in Dorset, England on June 23, 1907. He was brought up in the city of Bath, Somerset in south-west England. He attended the Lambrook school in Berkshire from 1917 to 1921, where his education revolved around the Greek and Latin languages. In his time in Oriel College, Oxford, Meade switched at the end of his second year from Greats to Philosophy, Politics, and Economics which was a very new concept at that time having started only in 1921. Meade's interest in economics grew due to various reasons. He considered the heavy unemployment in the United Kingdom in the inter-war period as a menace and a social evil. His association with Major C. H. Douglas, to whom he was introduced to by his aunt, helped him come up with a cure for this evil. In 1930 Meade was elected to a fellowship at Hertford College, Oxford. There he received the option of continuing his study of economics as a postgraduate student. In 1930–31 Meade joined Trinity College, Cambridge after being invited to do so by Dennis Robertson whom he met through his great aunt. While in Cambridge Meade became close friends with Richard Kahn, Piero Sraffa, Joan Robinson, and Austin Robinson, forming the Cambridge Circus for economic discussion. Together they started discussing Keynes' work namely the A Treatise on Money. Every weekend Keynes appeared and was presented with the circle's discussion over the week by Kahn. They