The Economist and the Detective: The 2025 Baker Street Imegulars Distinguished Lecture.

The article explores the surprising intellectual connections between the English economist John Maynard Keynes and the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, arguing that Holmes’s influence shaped Keynes’s approach to economics as a science of deduction focused on understanding human behavior. Keynes, born in 1883, was a pioneering figure who helped establish economics as a distinct discipline and served as a consulting economist during both World Wars, notably opposing the punitive Treaty of Versailles and working to undermine the Nazi economy. The piece highlights Keynes’s multifaceted talents, his role within the Bloomsbury Group, and his complex personal life, while drawing parallels between his analytical methods and Holmes’s detective work. It also touches on Keynes’s rivalry with economist Friedrich Hayek, framed in Sherlockian terms, and concludes by noting Keynes’s lasting legacy as a national and international figure.