Pierre Achille Louis Eugène Quesnay ( – ) was a French economist and central bank official. From 1930 to 1937, he was the first General Manager of the

Bank for International Settlements The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an international financial institution which is owned by member central banks. Its primary goal is to foster international monetary and financial cooperation while serving as a bank for central bank ...

Basel Basel ( ; ), also known as Basle ( ), ; ; ; . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine (at the transition from the High Rhine, High to the Upper Rhine). Basel is Switzerland's List of cities in Switzerland, third-most-populo ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

, the world's first

international financial institution An international financial institution (IFI) is a financial institution that has been established (or chartered) by more than one country, and hence is subject to international law. Its owners or shareholders are generally national governments, alt ...

Life

Quesnay was born in

Évreux Évreux () is a commune in and the capital of the department of Eure, in the French region of Normandy. History Antiquity In late Antiquity, the town, attested in the fourth century AD, was named '' Mediolanum Aulercorum'', "the central town ...

. He studied law in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

under supervision of economist Charles Rist. He was enlisted in the French army during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, after which Rist mentored him to join the

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

office of the

Reparation Commission The Reparation Commission, also Inter-Allied Reparation Commission (sometimes "Reparations Commission"), was established by the Treaty of Versailles to determine the level of World War I reparations which Germany should pay the victorious Allies ...

that had been set up by

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles was a peace treaty signed on 28 June 1919. As the most important treaty of World War I, it ended the state of war between Germany and most of the Allies of World War I, Allied Powers. It was signed in the Palace ...

. Quesnay served there from 1920 to 1925, working with High Commissioner of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

, and interacting with international financial policymakers of the time that included

Jean Monnet Jean Omer Marie Gabriel Monnet (; 9 November 1888 – 16 March 1979) was a French civil servant, entrepreneur, diplomat, financier, and administrator. An influential supporter of European unity, he is considered one of the founding fathers of t ...

and

Montagu Norman Montagu Collet Norman, 1st Baron Norman DSO PC (6 September 1871 – 4 February 1950) was an English banker, best known for his role as the Governor of the Bank of England from 1920 to 1944. Norman led the bank during the toughest period in ...

. In 1926, he joined the

Bank of France The Bank of France ( ) is the national central bank for France within the Eurosystem. It was the French central bank between 1800 and 1998, issuing the French franc. It does not translate its name to English, and thus calls itself ''Banque de F ...

where Rist had just been appointed deputy governor, and became the first head of the bank's newly created research department. He was instrumental in the stabilisation of the

French franc The franc (; , ; currency sign, sign: F or Fr), also commonly distinguished as the (FF), was a currency of France. Between 1360 and 1641, it was the name of coins worth 1 livre tournois and it remained in common parlance as a term for this amoun ...

under Prime Minister

Raymond Poincaré Raymond Nicolas Landry Poincaré (; 20 August 1860 – 15 October 1934) was a French statesman who served as President of France from 1913 to 1920, and three times as Prime Minister of France. He was a conservative leader, primarily committed to ...

(remembered as the Franc Poincaré), for which he was described as one of a

triumvirate A triumvirate () or a triarchy is a political institution ruled or dominated by three individuals, known as triumvirs (). The arrangement can be formal or informal. Though the three leaders in a triumvirate are notionally equal, the actual distr ...

together with Rist and Bank of France Governor Émile Moreau. In 1929, Quesnay participated in the French delegation at the

Hague conference on reparations The Hague conference on reparations of 1929–30 was an international conference on World War I reparations that reviewed and adopted the Young Plan, the final attempt during the Weimar Republic to settle the reparations issue. The conference was ...

where the

Young Plan The Young Plan was a 1929 attempt to settle issues surrounding the World War I reparations obligations that Germany owed under the terms of Treaty of Versailles. Developed to replace the 1924 Dawes Plan, the Young Plan was negotiated in Paris f ...

was negotiated, resulting in the creation of the

(BIS) in early 1930. France successfully bid for one of its nationals to become the bank's managing director, and Quesnay was chosen for the job even though Germany, for reasons of principle not linked to Quesnay's competence or suitability, voted against. While at the BIS, Quesnay was a steadfast promoter of the

gold exchange standard A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was the basis for the international monetary system from the 1870s to the early 1920s, and from the la ...

. In early September 1937, he visited Émile Moreau at the latter's country home in Saint-Léomer, and died there accidentally by drowning in a pond. He was buried in

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quesnay, Pierre 1895 births 1937 deaths Bank for International Settlements 20th-century French economists

Life

See also

References