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Brown served on the Raisman Commission that reported on the challenges of decolonization of British East Africa, and as a member of the Advisory Group on Central Africa. The chapter sets out his participation in these two ventures as one of the main economists on one and as the economic expert on the other. It focuses on the way Brown applied trade and development economics to the issues that were encountered is this period of radical change in Africa. Brown, along with the likes of Oscar Lange and Wassily Leontief, also served in 1960 as the British representative in the United Nations consultative group on Economic and Social Consequences of Disarmament that explored the likely effects of large-scale disarmament on national incomes and employment. It considers Brown’s quantitative contributions to the group.

This chapter covers Brown’s later activities at Leeds University, when he was among (other things) a senior pro-vice-chancellor, and his work after retiring from Leeds. The latter includes serving on the Donald MacDougall Commission, a European Commission (EC) Study Group of independent economists charged with examining the future role of public finance at the Community level in the general context of European economic integration. The chapter also considers Brown’s later work, World Inflation Since 1950 (1985), in which he updates and expands his earlier analysis of the subject, making use of advances in econometric techniques, new theories of price inflation, and improved data sets.