12 - Opening up Vistas

Summary

Chapter 12 describes Tinbergen’s transformation from a national economic expert to an international development economist. While involved in domestic matters in the early 1950s, a trip to India affected him deeply. Afterward he reoriented his career, asked permission to leave the CPB, and developed a new research agenda. That new agenda went hand in hand with a redefinition of the role of the Netherlands in the world in the aftermath of colonization. Tinbergen argued that it was the responsibility of the Dutch people to give something back to the world after the country had received Marshall aid and was again a stable economy. The most visible outcome of this was his involvement in the founding of NOVIB. He worried that social democracy in Western Europe was turning into a complacent and materialistic movement and hoped that international goals would give it a new spirit. He drew on his extensive network in Dutch politics and the Royal family to shape development aid policies at home and to transform himself from a national into an international economic expert. This aligned with a reimagination of the economy, which he increasingly viewed as an international interdependent system, under the influence of Colin Clark.