Bauer of Market Ward in the City of Cambridge, Peter Thomas Bauer, Baron

▪ 2003

Péter Tamás Bauer 

      Hungarian-born British economist (b. Nov. 6, 1915, Budapest, Hung., Austria-Hungary—d. May 3, 2002, London, Eng.), fiercely opposed all developmental aid to less-developed countries because he said that it discouraged local initiative and was too often misused by corrupt leaders; he contended that economic development was possible only through private enterprise, the unrestricted exchange of ideas, free trade, and unregulated market forces. Though Bauer spoke little English when he arrived in England in 1934, he nonetheless was accepted at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and earned a first-class degree in economics (1937). He briefly worked for a rubber-trading company, then taught at the University of London (1947–48) and at Cambridge from 1948 until 1960, when he was named a professor at the London School of Economics. He retired in 1983, a year after he had been granted a life peerage on the recommendation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who applauded his conservative economic theories. Bauer's often controversial writings included Economic Analysis and Policy in Underdeveloped Countries (1957), Equality, the Third World, and Economic Delusion (1981), and The Development Frontier: Essays in Applied Economics (1991). In April 2002 Bauer was named the first recipient of the Cato Institute's Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, but he died less than a week before he was to have received the award.

* * *