Charles Goodhart's Contributions to the History of Monetary Institutions

Abstract

Our paper examines Charles Goodhart's work on the history of monetary institutions: central bank operations under the gold standard, their behaviour in relation to the financial system in which they functioned, including their responses to banking crises, and their performance as lenders of last resort. Although we differ with Charles on some of the conclusions that he has reached, we pay tribute to his importance in shaping the discussion by economists over a thirty-year span on questions related to the functioning of banks, their customers, and the historic central banks that evolved from serving government to serving banks.