Charles Goodhart

Biography

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.

Lectures & Interviews

Education

Ph.D. Economics, Harvard University

B.A. Economics, University of Cambridge

Academic Positions

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)

Field

Economics

Finance

Topics

Monetary Economics

Financial Stability

Banking Regulation

Central Banking & Advisory

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)