The Life of Warren C.: From the River to the Sea, All should be Free

At the age of 82, Dr. Warren L. Coats, Jr. reviews his life from birth on his father’s birthday in Bakersfield, California, to his full retirement in National Landing, Arlington, Virginia. He reminisces his senior year of high school as an exchange student in central Germany, his years at Bakersfield College and UC Berkeley (B.A.), and U. of Chicago for a Ph.D. in Economics—with a nine-month break in Hawaii to get married and teach econ at U. of Hawaii. Six years as an assistant professorship at the U. of Virginia in Charlottesville during which his two children were born, were followed by 26 years at the International Monetary Fund, where he led or participated in technical assistance missions to the central banks of over twenty countries (including Afghanistan, Bosnia, Croatia, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, South Sudan, Turkey, West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Zimbabwe), and was seconded as a visiting economist to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1979-80), and to the World Bank’s World Development Report team in 1989. After retirement from the IMF, he was a member of the Board of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority from 2003-10, and of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review from 2010-2017. He continued as a consultant to provide technical assistance to central banks in post-conflict countries—until the covid pandemic closed such work down.He shares his efforts to deny and eventually accept his homosexuality as well as some detailed discussions of his monetary policy and regime views, and the joy of our more-enlightened society that allowed and recognizes his marriage to a man. Read more