Frans Keesing

Nationality

Netherlands

Date of Birth

1913

Date of Death

1972

Political
Preference

Frans Arnold George Keesing was born in Hilversum and studied economics at the University of Amsterdam, where he also obtained his doctorate in economics.

After a short career in London with Unilever, he came back to the Netherlands and worked for the Research Bureau of the Directorate of Trade and Industry of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. During the war, Keesing kept writing books and articles on Dutch economic policy and history. In 1945 he published Het modern geldwezen, which would remain the standard textbook on monetary theory for many years to come.

After the Second World War, Keesing took up a position in the Finance Department. His main task was in the field of international payments, which had stalled as a result of war conditions. As adviser to the ministry, he was closely involved for the Netherlands in discussions on payment systems between the Benelux countries and in negotiations on the design of international payments. In the meantime, Keesing had also been appointed professor in the field of credit and international economic relations at the University of Amsterdam in 1946.

In 1948, Keesing was one of the Dutch financial experts involved in the creation of the various Intra-European Payments Schemes through the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). Eventually, these agreements would lead to the creation of the European Payment Union (EPU) in 1950, an important milestone in the regulation of international payments. Keesing can be considered as one of the spiritual fathers of this arrangement, which formed the basis for the post-war liberalization of trade in Europe. In 1951, Keesing moved to Washington to work for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and in 1964 he was appointed director of the then newly established IMF training institute.