John Chown is a monetary economist in the United Kingdom who made his career as an international tax specialist with particular reference to currency and financial markets. Since retiring from Chown Dewhurst LLP he has remained very active, taking part in discussions on public policy issues with special reference to the development of capital markets and encouragement of inward investment into transitional and emerging economies, the future of the Eurozone, and advising on. He also works closely with a group advising on the financing of high-tech, `disruptiveâ start-ups.
Chown was educated at Gordonstoun and Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he won the Adam Smith Prize for a dissertation on fixed versus floating exchange rates, was awarded the Wrenbury Scholarship as top of his year, and is now an Honorary Fellow of the College. He served for many years on the Investment Committee.
In 1962, Chown founded his tax advisory company, J F Chown & Company Limited, now Chown Dewhurst LLP. He has been a public policy adviser to Conservative Chancellors and Shadow Chancellors, commenting on European tax harmonisation proposals and visiting Canada, Australia, New Zealand as an international adviser on their respective tax reforms. He was active in the Know How Fund, which provided market and taxation advice to transitional countries after the collapse of Communism, he continued to do advisory work in Russia, including a World Bank project of the development of capital markets and has worked, with Jackie Newbury, on projects in Mongolia and Thailand and has been on many City of London missions.
Chown is a co-founder of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and remains on the Committee of the International Tax Specialist Group, is active in the Political Economy Club, the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, and several other Think Tanks.
He is Honorary Financial Adviser to the Royal Society of Musicians (and now an `Honorary MemberâÂÂ) and is still very active with the London Handel Society and other musical charities.
Chown wrote several books on tax policy, is the author of âÂÂA History of Monetary Unionsâ (Routledge 2003), and has contributed a chapter, âÂÂLessons of Monetary HistoryâÂÂ, to the IEA study, âÂÂThe Euro â the Beginning, the Middle .. and the End?â (April 2013) and reviewed for Central Banking, Harold James âÂÂMaking the European Monetary Unionâ (February 2013).
Two articles and several other reviews in Central Banking deal more generally with the financial crisis. In November 2009, he wrote an article âÂÂTowards a New Banking System! In which he commented briefly on the problems arising from bad practices in the banking system. The editor invited him to follow up on this in âÂÂConflicts of Interest and System RiskâÂÂ, Central Banking, November 2010, discusses improper (and therefore unsustainable) profits made by banks, and their potential threat to financial stability, was a follow-up to an earlier article in November 2009, âÂÂTowards a New Banking SystemâÂÂ. Several subsequent book reviews followed up on his point. He has contributed chapters to more than fifteen books on the topics of tax reform and monetary policy.
Chown, shocked by the way in which the banks were making very substantial hidden profits out of Initial Public Offerings by exploiting conflicts of interest, he made major campaigns and published âÂÂEnd to Underwriting: How the Coalition can avoid being Ripped Off!âÂÂ, Centre for Policy Studies, August, 2011. When the EU proposed a Financial Transactions Tax (the Tobin Tax), Chown was invited to give evidence to the House of Lords Committee in late 2011 and followed this with a publication âÂÂTime To Bin The Tobin Taxâ Centre for Policy Studies, April 2012.
2019
2018
2017