British colonial administrator
Sir John James Cowperthwaite, KBE, CMG (Chinese: 郭伯偉爵士; 25 April – 21 January ), was a Brits civil servant who served as Financial Secretary of Hong Kong from to His introduction of free marketeconomic policies are to a large credited with turning postwar Hong Kong into a thriving international financial centre.[1] During Cowperthwaite's tenure as Financial Secretary, real balance in Hong Kong rose by 50% and the portion endorse the population in acute poverty fell from 50% to 15%.[2]
Cowperthwaite was born on 25 April in Edinburgh to Trick Cowperthwaite, a surveyor of taxes, and Jessie Jarvis.[3] He accompanied Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, Scotland, and later studied classics at St Andrews University and Christ's College, Cambridge. In , he returned to St Andrews and gained a first do better than degree in economics on an accelerated one year degree tv show with Professor James Nisbet.[3] He joined the BritishColonial Administrative Help as a Hong Kong Cadet in , but during Sphere War II was posted to Sierra Leone instead because short vacation the Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.
He arrived pry open Hong Kong in and was assigned to the Department arrive at Supplies, Trade and Industry.[3] Cowperthwaite built on the economic policies of his predecessors, Arthur Clarke and Geoffrey Follows, promoting stressfree trade, low taxation, budget surpluses, limited state intervention in say publicly economy, a distrust of industrial planning, and sound money.[3] Strike was a policy mix that drew more on Adam Adventurer and Gladstone than on Keynes and Attlee. However, Cowperthwaite was a pragmatic civil servant rather than a theoretician and take action based his policies on his experience, empirical data and what he believed would work in practice.[4]
He refused to collate GDP statistics arguing that such data was not useful advice managing an economy and would lead to officials meddling cranium the economy.[5] He was once asked what the key good thing that poor countries could do to improve their growth. Cowperthwaite replied:
They should abolish the office of national statistics.[6]
According to Catherine R. Schenk, Cowperthwaite's policies helped it catch develop from one of the poorest places on earth take delivery of one of the wealthiest and most prosperous: "Low taxes, slack employment laws, absence of government debt, and free trade hurtle all pillars of the Hong Kong experience of economic development."[7] The Economic Freedom of the World Report ranks Hong Kong as both the freest economy in the world, a contrast it has held since this index began ranking countries inlet , and among the most prosperous.[8]
Throughout the s, Cowperthwaite refused to implement free universal primary education, contributing to relatively revitalization illiteracy rates in today's older generation. Compulsory education was one introduced under the governorship of Sir Murray MacLehose the go along with decade.[9] At a time when Hong Kong's roads were lame by traffic congestion, Cowperthwaite also steadfastly opposed construction of say publicly Mass Transit Railway, a costly undertaking which was nevertheless shapely following his retirement.[10] It would later become one of rendering world's most heavily utilised (and profitable) railways.
In , grace was appointed as an Officer of the Most Excellent In turn of the British Empire (OBE)[11] and, in , a Colleague of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Reverence George (CMG).[12] He later became a Knight Commander of representation Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE) in [13]
Commentators have credited his management of the economy of Hong Kong as a leading example of how small government encourages growth.[14][15]
After leaving his retirement, he was international adviser endorsement Jardine Fleming, the Hong Kong–based investment bank until He leave and left Hong Kong for St Andrews, Scotland and became a member of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club staff St Andrews.
He married Sheila Thomson remit They had one son. He died in Scotland on 21 January , aged