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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.

This chapter focuses on Brown’s activities at Leeds University, especially regarding the Economics Department that he served and was head of for an extended period from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. This is set in the more general context of the evolutionary changes that were taking place in English higher education at that time. It also outlines his views on the nature of an economics department and on the senior management of one.

Brown’s early life and education is described, along with the socio-economic environment of the part of the UK he was brought up in. An account is offered of the economics education at Oxford University in the 1930s and the influence of Keynes on the way economics was treated. The chapter provides an outline of the courses taught in the philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE) degree and some of the individuals involved in that teaching.

This chapter looks at Brown’s role as an economic advisor on a range of UK domestic matters. It initially offers an overview of Brown’s own opinions regarding the official advisory role, and then looks at some of his other activities, which included serving on the Advisory Boards of both the new University of Kent and the University of Bradford, created from a former College of Advanced Technology. He also served for many years on the University Grants Committee that advised the Department of Education and Science on university financing. His appointment was linked to his earlier work on the Tress-Brown Index that provided the foundation for assessing university base costs.

This chapter looks initially at the institutions and research groupings that were emerging in Oxford in the late 1930s, and the roles of key figures such as Roy Harrod, James Meade, and Jacob Marschak in shaping their direction, and especially that of A.J. Brown. It outlines Brown’s own contribution on liquidity preference in both his doctoral dissertation and subsequent early publications. It also looks at his time in the civil service during World War II, initial ties with Chatham House, and his extensive publication in the Bulletin of International News.