Filippo Gaddo, Managing Director at A&M and SPE Councillor, interviewed Edward Chancellor, a financial historian, journalist and author, most recently of The Price of Time.

In the interview, Filippo and Edward discuss the history of the concept of ‘interest rates’ and how it has evolved over time, from Mesopotamian times until the 20th century when it became the subject of much study and began to be used as a tool of economic policy in earnest.

By looking at the story of interest we also necessarily look at the story of financial economics and economic thought itself. Interest rates are to a certain extent the equivalent over time of what prices are in the current market system: information and a means of communication. The conversation then turned to explaining the clash of thoughts between Hayek and Keynes and their view of interest rates and how they can be used in policymaking - and potentially overused as it has been the case by most central banks over the past 50 years. Edward outlines the thesis of his latest book, on how excessively low interest rates have created imbalances in the global economy in recent times. Edward and Filippo end with thoughts on the current economic environment and the interaction between current policies in the US, the AI revolution and interest rates. Listen in for a centuries-spanning conversation. 

Edward Chancellor is a financial historian, journalist and investment strategist. Edward read history at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with first-class honours, and later gained an M.Phil. in Enlightenment history from Oxford University.

In the early 1990s he worked for the London merchant bank, Lazard Brothers. He was later an editor at the financial commentary site, Breakingviews. From 2008 to 2014, Edward was a senior member of the asset allocation team at GMO, the Boston-based investment firm. He is currently a columnist for Reuters Breakingviews and an occasional contributor to the Wall Street Journal, MoneyWeek, the New York Review of Books and Financial Times.

In 2008, Edward received the George Polk Award for financial reporting for his article “Ponzi Nation” in Institutional Investor magazine. Edward Chancellor is the author of Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (Farrar Straus/Macmillan, 1999), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Devil Take the Hindmost has been translated into more than half a dozen languages. In 2005, he published the report, Crunch-Time for Credit? (Harriman House), an analysis of the ongoing credit boom in the US and UK. His latest book, The Price of Time, has been longlisted for the FT 2022 Business Book of the Year and was awarded the 2023 Hayek Prize.

He is a regular speaker at https://www.weekendofmistakes.org/.

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