Wolf was born in London, 1946. His father Edmund was an Austrian Jewish playwright who escaped to England before World War II.Edmund met Wolf's mother in London, a Dutch Jew who had lost nearly thirty close relatives in the Holocaust. Wolf recalls that his background left him wary of political extremes and encouraged his interest in economics, as he felt economic policy mistakes were one of the root causes of WWII. Wolf left the World Bank in 1981, to become Director of Studies at the Trade Policy Research Centre, in London. He joined the Financial Times in 1987, where he has been associate editor since 1990 and chief economics commentator since 1996. Up until the late 2000s, Wolf was an influential advocate of globalization and the free market. In addition to his journalism and participation in various international forums, Wolf had also attempted to influence opinion with his books; he has stated his 2004 book Why Globalization Works was intended to be a persuasive work rather than an academic study. By 2008 Wolf had become disillusioned with theories promoting what he came to see as excessive reliance on the private sector. While remaining a pragmatist free of binding commitments to any one ideology, Wolf's views partially shifted away from free market thinking back to the Keynesian ideas he had been taught as a youth. He became one of the more influential drivers of the 2008—2009 Keynesian resurgence, where in late 2008 and early 2009 he used his platform on the Financial Times to advocate a massive fiscal response for the financial crisis of 2007—2010. According to Julia Loffe writing in 2009 for The New Republic, he was "arguably the most widely trusted pundit" of the crisis. His friends include leading financiers such as Mohamed A. El-Erian; politicians such as Manmohan Singh , Timothy Geithner and Ed Balls; many leading economists; central bankers such as Mervyn King - according to Wolf he knows all significant central bankers.Wolf is widely regarded as one of the most influential economics journalists in the world. Lawrence H. Summers has called him "the world's preeminent financial journalist"Mohamed A. El-Erian, CEO of the world's largest bond investor, said Wolf is "by far, the most influential economic columnist out there."