In Memoriam

• Pages: 32-32

17

September 2014

In Memoriam

William C. Hood (Bill)

BillHood,whoserveda sEconomicCounsellorand

DirectorofResearchattheIM Ffrom1979to1986,passed

awaypeacefullyonMay15,2014inVienna,Virginia ,atthe

age of 92. rough his 28 yea rs of retirement, he led a quietly

happy life, much as he had throughout a dis tinguished and

multi-faceted career for more than t hree decades.

BillwasborninYarmouth,NovaScoti a,inSeptember

1921.HegraduatedfromMountAllisonUniversityandthe

University of Toronto (where he earned a Ph.D. in eco-

nomics).HethenattendedtheUniversityofChicagoasa

post-doctoratefellow.From1946to1964,Billwasaprofes-

sorofeconomicsattheUniversityofToronto.Whilethere,

he made a lasting contribution by co-authori ng an o-cited

paper on econometric theory w ith Tjalling Koopmans (the

famous Dutch economist, then at t he University of Chicago,

wholaterwonthe1975NobelPrizeineconomics)andby

co-editing t he book Studies in Econometric Method(1953),

also with Koopmans .

Billswitchedtopublicser viceinCanadai n1964,begin-

ning with a sti nt at the Bank of Canada and culm inating

with his appointment as Deput y Minister of Finance in

1979.Laterthatyear,followingachangeingovernment,Bill

replaced the retiri ng Jacques J. Polak and became the Fund’s

third Director of Resea rch. On retirement, he spent the rest

ofhislifeintheWashing tonarea,whereheandhislatewife

Mary(towhomhewasmarriedfor50years)couldremai n

close to their two chi ldren and four grandchildren.

Bill’s highly succe ssful career was masked by his modes t

andunassumi ngdemeanor.WhenhewasappointedDeputy

Minister, an unnamed for mer ocial was quoted as saying,

“Hemaybetechnicallyt hebesteconomistinthecountr y,

but if someone hadn’t told me how brilliant the guy was, I

would never have known it.” At the IMF, he had the reputa-

tional misfortu ne of following t wo larger-than-life legends,

Eddie Bernstein a nd Jacques Polak, and then being followed

by economists who by now are even more well-known, star t-

ingwithJacobFrenkelandM ikeMussa.Nonetheless,hi s

time at the Fund was ma rked by a substantial increase in the

role and reputation of the Research Depar tment, especially

through the conversion of the World Economic Outlook

from a secret annual i nternal report into the Fund’s agship

publication. Most important ly, one could not have hoped to

work for a nicer man.

—James Boughton and Hugh Young

en shock propagation and synchroniz ation, particularly

in Asia. By contrast, Ch ina’s role as a conduit for external

shocks may dimin ish as its role as the region’s “assembly

hub” continues to decline.

References

Abiad, A., D. Furceri, S. Kalemli-Ozcan, and A. Pescatori. 2013.

“Dancing Together? Spillovers, Common Shocks, and the

Role of Financial and Trade Linkages,” in World Economic

Outlook,(Washington:InternationalMonetaryFund,

October),pp.81–111.

Duval,R.,K.Cheng,K-H.Oh, R.Saraf,andD.Seneviratne.

2014. “Trade and Business Cycle Synchronization: A

ReappraisalwithFocusonAsia,”IMFWorkingPaper

14/52(Washington:InternationalMonetaryFund).

Frankel,J.A.,andA.K.Rose.1997.“EconomicStructureand

the Decision to Adopt a Common Currency,” Seminar

PaperNo611,TheInstituteforInternationalEconomic

Studies (Stockholm: Stockholm University).

———. 1998. “The Endogeneity of the Optimum Currency

Area Criteria,” Royal Economic Society, Vol. 108(499), pp.

1009–1025.

Kalemli-Ozcan, Sebnem, E. Papaioannou, and J. Peydro. 2013.

“Financial Regulation, Financial Globalization, and the

Synchronization of Economic Activity,” Journal of Finance,

Vol.LXIII,pp.1179–1228.

Trade Integration (continued from page 16)