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Charles Goodhart

Charles Goodhart

Emeritus Professor of Banking and Finance, London School of Economics

Charles Goodhart, CBE, FBA is Emeritus Professor of Banking and Finance with the Financial Markets Group at the London School of Economics.

Until his retirement in 2002, he had been the Norman Sosnow Professor of Banking and Finance at LSE since 1985. He has also taught at the University of Cambridge.

In 1986 he co-founded the Financial Markets Group at LSE with Mervyn King. He was Deputy Director of the Financial Markets Group from 1987-2005.

He also served as a monetary adviser to the Bank of England for seventeen years, becoming a Chief Adviser in 1980.

While at the Bank of England, Goodhart advised on Hong Kong’s link to the U.S. dollar in 1983. He subsequently served as a member of the HK Exchange Fund Advisory Committee (1983-1997) and later co-authored Intervention to Save Hong Kong: Counter-Speculation in Financial Markets.

From 1997-2000 he was an outside independent member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee.

From 2000-2004 he was as Adviser to the Governor of the Bank of England on the issue of financial stability.

From 2009-2016, he was an economic consultant to Morgan Stanley.

In addition to numerous articles, he has authored three books on monetary history, Money, Information and Uncertainty, Monetary Theory and Practice, and The Central Bank and The Financial System.

His most recent books include The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: A History of the Early Years, 1974-1997, The Regulatory Response to the Financial Crisis, and The Great Demographic Reversal.

He is the author of Goodhart's Law, which states that ‘whenever a government seeks to rely on a previously observed statistical regularity for control purposes, that regularity will collapse’ (Monetary Theory and Practice, page 96).

He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1990, and awarded the CBE in 1997, for services to monetary economics.

Topics
Economics · Finance · Monetary Economics · Financial Stability · Banking Regulation

Talks & video5

Selected publications24

  1. 2020The Great Demographic Reversal: Ageing Societies, Waning Inequality, and an Inflation Revival, w/ Manoj Pradhan (2020)
  2. 2012Financial Stability in Practice: Towards an Uncertain Future (2012)
  3. 2012The Challenges of Financial Stability: A New Model and its Applications (2012)
  4. 2011The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision: A History of the Early Years, 1974-1997 (2011)
  5. 2009The Fundamental Principles of Financial Regulation (2009)
  6. 2009The Regulatory Response to the Financial Crisis (2009)
  7. 2007House Prices & the Macroeconomy (2007) w/ Boris Hofmann
  8. 2004Some New Directions for Financial Stability (2004)
  9. 2003Intervention to Save Hong Kong (2003)
  10. 2002Financial Crises, Contagion, and the Lender of Last Resort (2002)
  11. 2001Regulating Financial Services and Markets in the 21st Century (2001)
  12. 2000The Foreign Exchange Market: Empirical Studies with High Frequency Data (2000)
  13. 2000Which Lender of Last Resort for Europe? (2000)
  14. 1998Financial Regulation: Why, How and Where Now? (1998)
  15. 1995The Central Bank and The Financial System (1995)
  16. 1994The Future of Central Banking (1994) w/ Forrest Capie, Stanley Fischer, & Norbert Schnadt
  17. 1989The Conduct of Monetary Policy, Economic Journal (1989)
  18. 1988The Foreign Exchange Market: A Random Walk with a Dragging Anchor, Economica (1988)
  19. 1985The Evolution of Central Banks (1985)
  20. 1984Monetary Theory and Practice (1984)
  21. 1973Money, Information and Uncertainty (1973)
  22. 1970Political Economy, Political Studies, vol. 18 (1970)
  23. 1914The Business of Banking, 1891-1914
  24. 1913The New York Money Market, 1900-1913

Positions & affiliations9

  • Emeritus Professor of Banking & Finance, The Financial Markets Group, London School of Economics
  • Deputy Director of the LSE’s Financial Markets Group (1987-2005)
  • Cofounded the Financial Markets Group at LSE (1986)
  • Norman Sosnow Professor of Banking and Finance, London School of Economics (1985-2002)
  • Adviser on Financial Stability, Bank of England (2000-2004)
  • Outside Independent Member, Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee (1997-2000)
  • Member, HK Exchange Fund Advisory Committee, (1983-1997)
  • Chief Adviser, Bank of England (1980-1985)
  • Monetary Adviser, Bank of England (1968-1980)

Credentials & fellowships2

  • CBE
  • FBA