31 Facts About Charles Goodhart

Charles Goodhart's work focuses on central bank governance practices and monetary frameworks.

Charles Goodhart was born on 23 October 1936 in Oxford, England to Arthur Lehman Goodhart, an American residing in England, and his English wife, Cecily Carter.

Charles Goodhart was then accepted to Eton College where he focused on the study of history and languages.

In October 1957, Charles Goodhart started studying economics at Cambridge University, where he was a member of his father's college, Trinity.

Charles Goodhart learnt under economists such as Nicky Kaldor, Richard Kahn, Joan Robinson, Michael Farrell, Frank Hahn and Robin Matthews.

Charles Goodhart completed his undergraduate course with First Class Honours.

Charles Goodhart took up a Prize Fellowship at Trinity College and became an assistant lecturer in economics.

Charles Goodhart spent the next two years interpreting English monetary history by cumulating and analysing the monthly reports of the London Joint Stock Banks, which were published after the Barings crisis of 1890.

In 1964, Charles Goodhart briefly joined the Department of Economic Affairs.

Charles Goodhart left the Department of Economic Affairs in 1966 when he joined the London School of Economics as a lecturer on monetary policy.

Charles Goodhart stayed at the London School of Economics until 1968.

Charles Goodhart left the London School of Economics to work a temporary two-year assignment at the Bank of England.

Whilst attending a conference held by the Reserve Bank of Australia in 1975, Charles Goodhart wrote in his footnotes "whenever a government seeks to rely on a previously observed statistical regularity for control purposes, that regularity will collapse".

Charles Goodhart's Law is commonly expressed as: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".

In 1979, Charles Goodhart jointly wrote a paper which was published in the Bank of England's Quarterly Bulletin.

Charles Goodhart served on the Hong Kong Exchange Fund Advisory Council for more than a decade.

Charles Goodhart then collaborated with Swiss firm Olsen and Associates to lead conferences about the importance of high speed data analysis and collection.

Charles Goodhart helped advise and publicly supported the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989, which permitted the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to vary interest rates to help meet agreed inflation targets.

In 1990, Charles Goodhart was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy.

Charles Goodhart retired from the London School of Economics in 2002 at which point he was appointed Emeritus Professor of Banking and Finance.

Charles Goodhart assisted in the British Parliament's review of approaches to monetary policy in 2007.

In 2015, Charles Goodhart critiqued the Warsh Review of the Bank of England's policy on monetary process.

Charles Goodhart was an economic consultant at Morgan Stanley from 2009 until 2016, when he retired at the age of 80.

At the 2021 Central Banking Awards, Charles Goodhart was awarded the Central Banking Lifetime Achievement Award for his work on monetary frameworks, risk management and foreign exchange markets as well as his involvement in the Hong Kong peg, the independence of the Royal Bank of New Zealand and the creation of Charles Goodhart's Law.

Charles Goodhart wrote this law in the footnotes of his paper Problems of monetary management: the UK experience for the Reserve Bank of Australia during his time at the Bank of England.

The most commonly used version of Charles Goodhart's Law comes from Strathern's paper: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".

In reflection to the creation of Goodhart's Law, Charles wrote: "it does feel slightly odd to have one's public reputation largely based on a minor footnote".

Charles Goodhart pioneered the integration of macroeconomics and finance, bringing them together in the monetary and regulatory policies of central banks.

Charles Goodhart is quoted saying: "It is only by constructing a mathematical institutional economics that one can study the economic system in a rigorous and analytical manner".

Google Scholar listed Charles Goodhart being the author or co-author of 539 articles and books by the end of 2017.

Charles Goodhart's most cited works include Money, Information and Uncertainty and The Evolution of Central Banks.