{{Short description|English economist and academic (1913–2002)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}} '''William Brian Reddaway''', CBE, FBA (8 January 1913 – 23 July 2002) was an English economist and academic.

== Biography == Born on 8 January 1913, he was the son of the historian William Fiddian Reddaway, who was a fellow of King's College, Cambridge.<ref name="odnb">R. C. O. Matthews, [https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-77063 "Reddaway, (William) Brian"], ''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (online ed., Oxford University Press, 2008). Retrieved 1 April 2021.</ref> He attended King's College School, Cambridge, Lydgate House in Hunstanton, and Oundle School before matriculating at King's College, Cambridge, in 1931, with a scholarship. He read mathematics and was placed in the first class for part 1 of the Tripos,<ref name="p288">Ajit Singh, [https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1722/138p285.pdf "William Brian Reddaway, 1913–2002"], ''Proceedings of the British Academy'', vol. 138 (2006), p. 288.</ref> before switching to economics in which he came top in his year for part 2. He was taught by Richard Kahn, J. M. Keynes and Gerald Shove.<ref name="odnb"/>

After graduating in 1934,<ref name="odnb"/> he worked at the Bank of England, during which time he visited the Soviet Union and produced a book on its financial system.<ref name="p288"/> In 1936, he was appointed to a research fellowship in economics at the University of Melbourne,<ref name="odnb"/> where he worked under L. F. Giblin. He gave evidence to the Commonwealth Arbitration Court in which he advocated for Australian miners' wages to be increased; when this was approved (as the 1937 Basic Wage Judgement), it was informally called the "Reddawage".<ref>Singh (2006), pp. 288–289.</ref><ref>G. C. Harcourt, "Reddaway, [William] Brian (1913–2002)", in G. C. Harcourt (ed.), ''On Skidelsky's Keynes and Other Essays: Selected Essays of G. C. Harcourt'' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 296.</ref>

Reddaway left the university in 1938 to take up a fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge, where he remained until 2002.<ref>Singh (2006), p. 285.</ref> He was also appointed a lecturer in the University of Cambridge in 1939. He worked at the Board of Trade during the Second World War (where he developed clothes rationing and worked as a statistician), returning to his academic duties in 1947. He was director of the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge from 1955 to 1969. He was also promoted to a readership in 1957 and to the Professorship of Political Economy in 1969, in which chair he remained until he retired in 1980.<ref name="odnb"/>

Reddaway produced studies of government taxation and foreign direct investment policy during the 1960s and 1970s, while also studying development in a range of other countries.<ref name="odnb" /> He was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1967, served as the co-editor of ''The Economic Journal'' from 1971 to 1976,<ref>Singh (2006), p. 300.</ref> and was appointed a CBE in 1971 for his services as a member of the National Board for Prices and Incomes.<ref>[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/45384/supplement/5965/data.pdf ''Supplement to the London Gazette''], 12 June 1971 (no. 45384), p. 5965.</ref>

Reddaway died on 23 July 2002; his wife Barbara Augusta, ''née'' Bennett (with whom he had four children), had died in 1996.<ref>Singh (2006), pp. 289, 306.</ref>

== References == {{Reflist|30em}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Reddaway, Brian}} Category:1913 births Category:2002 deaths Category:English economists Category:People educated at Oundle School Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Category:Academic staff of the University of Melbourne Category:Fellows of Clare College, Cambridge Category:Professors of Political Economy (Cambridge, 1863) Category:Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Category:Fellows of the British Academy