Willy van Ryckeghem

Willy van Ryckeghem (Gent, 1935) is a Belgian economist and consumerist who devoted most of his career to Latin America. He studied economics in Ghent, Copenhagen and Paris and taught Business cycles and Fiscal Policy at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Econometrics at Ghent University from 1968 to 1982.

His first experience in Latin America was in Argentina where he worked at the Consejo Nacional de Desarrollo (Conade) in 1964-65 under the auspices of the Harvard Development Advisory Service. He teamed with British economist Geoffrey Maynard to develop a stabilization model which was applied by the following administration during the period 1967-1970. After initial success in reducing the inflation rate from 22 to 7 percent without causing a major recession, the stabilization effort broke down in 1970.[1]

His next assignment was with IPEA in Rio de Janeiro under the auspices of the so-called Berkeley Group, where he developed the country`s first input-output table for 1959.[2]

In 1972 he was awarded the Fernand Collin Prize for Law by the University Foundation of Belgium

In 1976 he published together with Geoffrey Maynard A World of Inflation . In this book, they distanced themselves from the dominant monetarist school, and drew attention to structural factors in explaining differences in inflation rates between countries.[3]

In 1982 he joined the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC where he led the Country Studies Division for seven years before becoming Deputy Manager of the Department of Economic and Social Development. In 1985 he presented a major study at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) meeting at Albuquerque on the Impact of the Latin American debt crisis on the countries in the region.

After his retirement, he co-founded with the financial and technical assistance from Euroconsumers the Brazilian nongovernmental organization Pro Teste, which is now the largest consumer organization in Latin America. Between 1975 and 1978, he was the third President of Consumers International, following Colston Warne of Consumers Union and Peter Goldman of Which?.