Geneva World Economic Conference (1927)
{{Short description|International economic conference}}
The World Economic Conference was an international economic conference held in Geneva in May 1927.
Overview
The conference was held at the Calvinium,{{cite web |website=Twitter |date={{date|2019/09/05}} |title=#Geneva has been at the heart of modern multilateralism for 100 years |author=United Nations Geneva |url=https://twitter.com/UNGeneva/status/1126471217777659905}} from May 4 to 23, 1927, and attended by representatives of 46 member countries of the League of Nations as well as the United States, the Soviet Union, and a few other non-members.
Initially suggested in 1925 by France's Louis Loucheur, it was the first international economic conference formally sponsored by the League, in the wake of the success of the stabilization loans led by its Economic and Financial Organization, particularly in Austria and Hungary, and of the Dawes Plan which had temporarily mitigated the challenge of German war reparations.{{citation |title=L'Organisation économique de la SDN et la naissance du régionalisme économique en Europe |author=Éric Bussière |journal=Relations Internationales |volume=75 |date=Fall 1993 |issue=75 |pages=301–313 |jstor=45344530 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/45344530}}{{rp|304}}
Under the chairmanship of former Belgian Prime Minister Georges Theunis, the participants, altogether 194 national delegates and 157 expert advisers,{{R|Pauly|p=18}} were not formally representing the respective governments; this feature was similar to that adopted at the Brussels Conference (1920), and unlike at the Genoa Conference (1922).{{citation |title=The World Economic Conference at Geneva |author=W. Leslie Runciman |journal=The Economic Journal |volume=37 |date=September 1927 |issue=147 |pages=465–472 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2223577 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.2307/2223577 |jstor=2223577 }}{{rp|465}} The scope was broad both geographically and thematically, as conveyed by the official name "World Economic Conference" mirroring Arthur Salter's preference for an international reach in line with the League's own, against Loucheur's preference for a European focus.{{R|Bussiere|p=305}}
Financial considerations were central to the conference. The delegates unanimously stated that "Financial reconstruction is the basis of economic reconstruction".{{citation |title=The League of Nations and the Foreshadowing of the International Monetary Fund |journal=Essays in International Finance |volume=201 |publisher=Princeton University |date=December 1996 |author=Louis W. Pauly |ssrn=2173443 |url=https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2173443 }}{{rp|17}} Efforts to restrain cartels were debated but without success, given the extent of differences between countries.{{R|Pauly|p=18}}