Edward Chancellor

{{Infobox person

| name = Edward Chancellor

| image =

| caption =

| birth_name = John Edward Horner Chancellor

| birth_place = Richmond, London, England

| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1962|12}}

| spouse = Antonia Phillips

| relatives = Anna Chancellor (sister)
Cecilia Chancellor (cousin)

| employer = {{ubl|Lazard Brothers|Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo}}

| death_date =

| death_place =

| resting_place =

| notable_works = {{ubl|Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (1999) | Crunch-Time for Credit? (2005)| The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest (2022)}}

| occupation = {{ubl|Investment strategist|Financial journalist| Financial historian}}

| alma_mater = {{ubl|Trinity College, Cambridge|St Antony's College, Oxford}}

| known_for = Predicting the dot-com bubble, and the credit bubble

| awards = George Polk Award in 2007

| website = {{URL|www.edwardchancellor.com/}}

}}

John "Edward" Horner Chancellor (born December 1962), is a British financial historian, finance journalist, and former hedge fund investment strategist and a former investment banker. In 2016, the Financial Analysts Journal called him "one of the great financial writers of our era", and in 2022, Fortune called him "one of the greatest financial historians alive". Chancellor is noted for his prescient warnings of the last three major economic bubbles in his published works: Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (1999, the dot-com bubble), Crunch-Time for Credit? (2005, the credit bubble), and The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest (2022, the everything bubble).

Early life and education

Chancellor was born in Richmond, England to barrister John Paget Chancellor (the editor of Knowledge), the eldest son of Sir Christopher Chancellor and Mary Jolliffe, who was the daughter of Lord Hylton. The Chancellor family were Scottish gentry who owned land at Quothquan since 1432.Burke's Landed Gentry, eighteenth edition, vol. I, ed. Peter Townend, 1965, p. 130 His sister is the actress Anna Chancellor.

He graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with first class honors in Modern History, and later from St Antony's College, Oxford with a Masters of Philosophy in Modern History.{{cite web | url=https://www.edwardchancellor.com/about | title=About Edward Chancellor | accessdate=6 August 2022 | website=Edward Chancellor}}

Investment career

After graduation, Chancellor worked for the investment bank Lazard Brothers in mergers & acquisitions from the early 1990s, and from 2008 to 2014, he was a senior member of the asset allocation team, and of the capital markets research team, at the Boston investment firm Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo & Co. (GMO).{{cite web | url=https://www.gresham.ac.uk/speakers/edward-chancellor | title=Edward Chancellor | accessdate=6 August 2022 | website=Gresham College}}{{cite web | website=TheBigPicture | first=Barry | last=Ritzhold | author-link=Barry Ritholtz | url=https://ritholtz.com/2022/11/transcript-edward-chancellor/ | title=Edward Chancellor on the Real Story of Interest | date=8 November 2022 | access-date=13 November 2022}}

Writing career

=Author=

In 1999, Chancellor published Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation, which made the long-list of the New York Times Notable Book of the Year.{{cite news |title=Notable Books |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/05/books/notable-books.html |access-date=2021-03-25 |work=The New York Times |date=1999-12-05 |page=66}} Martin Vander Weyer in the Spectator called the book a much more entertaining version of Charles P. Kindleberger's 1978 work Manias, Panics and Crashes.{{cite web | magazine=Spectator | url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/spikes-and-stagnant-growth-why-we-are-where-we-are | title=Spikes and stagnant growth: why we are where we are | first=Martin | last=Vander Weyer | author-link=Martin Vander Weyer | date=16 July 2022 | accessdate=6 August 2022}}

In 2022, William J. Bernstein said of the book, "More than 20 years ago, Edward Chancellor's Devil Take the Hindmost supplied readers with one of the most engaging and incisive descriptions of financial manias ever written".{{cite web | website=CFA Institute | url=https://blogs.cfainstitute.org/investor/2022/06/23/book-review-the-price-of-time/ | title=Book Review: The Price of Time | first=William | last=J. Bernstein | author-link=William J. Bernstein | date=22 June 2022 | accessdate=6 August 2022}} Bernstein added, "Besides being a first-rate economic historian, Chancellor is also a master wordsmith; almost unique among serious finance books".

In 2005, he published Crunch Time for Credit?, an analysis of the credit boom in the United States and the United Kingdom.{{cite web | url=https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/review-timely-warning-central-bank-folly-2022-07-08/ | title=Review: A timely warning of central bank folly | first=Felix | last=Martin | date=8 July 2022 | accessdate=6 August 2022 | website=Reuters }} The book came from a 2005 report Chancellor wrote for British hedge fund manager Crispin Odey on the growing housing and credit bubble. In 2009, Charles Moore wrote of the book, "Chancellor foresaw almost everything. His report listed the common features of the US and British credit booms, including 'a shared belief in the new paradigm and the ability of central bankers to save the day', 'low-income growth yet also strong growth in consumer spending, largely fuelled by home equity withdrawal' and 'rising government deficits.'"{{cite web | newspaper=Sydney Morning Herald | url=https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/captains-did-not-see-the-iceberg-20090309-8t8z.html | title=Captains did not see the Iceberg | first=Charles | last=Moore | date=10 March 2009 | accessdate=6 August 2022 | author-link=Charles Moore, Baron Moore of Etchingham}}

In 2022, he published The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest, which criticized the orthodox central banking policy of continually lowering interest rates, and using perpetual quantitative easing, to generate economic growth via asset price inflation.{{cite web | newspaper=Wall Street Journal | url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-price-of-time-book-review-a-tale-of-interest-11660318407 | title='The Price of Time' Review: Getting Interest Rates Wrong | first=Adam | last=Rowe | date=12 August 2022 | accessdate=13 August 2022}} A policy that Chancellor predicted had resulted in an everything bubble in asset prices, extreme wealth inequality (particularly between the generations),{{cite web | newspaper=The Daily Telegraph | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/02/ultra-low-rates-have-put-us-new-road-serfdom/ | title=Ultra low rates have put us on a new road to serfdom | first=Charles | last=Moore | author-link=Charles Moore, Baron Moore of Etchingham | date=2 August 2022 | accessdate=19 August 2022}} and that would end in very high levels of price inflation.{{cite web | magazine=Fortune | url=https://fortune.com/2022/07/29/inflation-hangover-central-banks-to-blame-edward-chancellor-biden-capitalism/ | date=29 July 2022 | accessdate=6 August 2022 | first=Will | last=Daniel | title=One of the greatest financial historians alive says central bankers have been incompetent for decades and inflation is our 'big hangover'}}

Martin Wolf in the Financial Times described the book as "a polemic against everything [Ben] Bernanke stands for" when reviewing it alongside former Fed chair Ben Bernanke's own 2022 book, 21st Century Monetary Policy.{{cite web | newspaper=Financial Times | url=https://www.ft.com/content/e7cc3c01-08e3-47fc-9442-d45378b34bb8 | first=Martin | last=Wolf | date=27 July 2022 | accessdate=6 August 2022 | author-link=Martin Wolf | title=A matter of interest — the battle over monetary policy | quote=Former Fed chair Ben Bernanke and historian Edward Chancellor offer conflicting perspectives on the crisis in central banking}} Martin Vander Weyer praised the book describing it as a more engaging read on the subject area than Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Emma Duncan in the Sunday Times praised the book and said Chancellor had a "gift for timing", as his two earlier books had forewarned of bubbles in speculation – the dot-com bubble, and the credit bubble – that eventually burst.{{cite web | newspaper=The Sunday Times | url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/the-price-of-time-by-edward-chancellor-review-mf6fh3rss | title=The Price of Time by Edward Chancellor review — Tales of folly and interest rates | first=Emma | last=Duncan | date=2 July 2022 | access-date=6 August 2022}} Finance author Felix Martin called the book a "timely warning" of central bank folly, and given the prescient nature of Chancellor's previous two books, said that as well as buying the book, investors should "sell all your stocks". In August 2022, the book was added to the list for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award for 2022.{{cite web | newspaper=Financial Times | url=https://www.ft.com/content/f99809a6-5910-4db3-93dd-02cd7795554d | title=Business Book of the Year 2022 — the longlist | first=Andrew | last=Hill | date=14 August 2022 | accessdate=14 August 2022}}

The journalist John Tierney, in his comments introducing Chancellor at the 2023 Hayek Lecture, said the author possessed "an extremely rare gift" in the timing of his writings.{{cite web |title=The 2023 Hayek Awards: Edward Chancellor (author, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZiLLkvIL8&t=265s |website=YouTube | date=8 June 2023 |publisher=Manhattan Institute |access-date=11 June 2023}} Regarding The Price of Time, for which Chancellor received the Hayek Award, Tierney added, "His book is remarkable not only for its prescience, but also for its erudition and its flair".{{cite web |title=The 2023 Hayek Awards: Edward Chancellor (author, The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest) |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrZiLLkvIL8&t=365s |website=YouTube | date=8 June 2023 |publisher=Manhattan Institute |access-date=11 June 2023}}

=Journalist=

During and after his period as a full-time investment manager, Chancellor has also provided opinion pieces and articles for the Reuters financial commentary website Breakingviews,{{cite web | title=Journalists – Breakingviews |url=https://www.breakingviews.com/about-us/journalists/ |website=Breakingviews |publisher=Reuters |access-date=25 March 2022}} and the Institutional Investor. He has also contributed opinion pieces to other financial publications, including the Wall Street Journal, MoneyWeek,{{cite web | website=MoneyWeek | url=https://moneyweek.com/authors/edward-chancellor | title=Profile: Edward Chancellor | date=23 May 2022 | accessdate=6 August 2022}} the New York Review of Books,{{cite web | website=The New York Review of Books | url=https://www.nybooks.com/contributors/edward-chancellor/ | title=Edward Chancellor | accessdate=6 August 2022}} and the Financial Times.{{cite web | website=Financial Times | url=https://www.ft.com/stream/384b1c88-b7a2-4aa3-91e3-1d12ccafb2a2 | title=Edward Chancellor | accessdate=6 August 2022}}

In 2008, Chancellor was announced as the winner of the 2007 George Polk Award in Financial Reporting for his 2007 article Ponzi Nation that he wrote for Institutional Investor. His citation noted that Chancellor had "warned months before the market decline that excessive risk-taking and interconnected investments – fueled by subprime mortgages and the activities of lightly regulated hedge funds – could cause calamity for world economies".{{cite journal | journal=Institutional Investor | url=https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150q7vtp7sv77/institutional-investors-edward-chancellor-wins-george-polk-award-for-financial-reporting | date=19 February 2008 | accessdate=6 August 2022 | title=Institutional Investor's Edward Chancellor Wins George Polk Award for Financial Reporting}} He was the first-ever writer for Institutional Investor to win a George Polk Award.

During the run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum, Chancellor wrote in his columns about why he had decided to vote to leave saying that the "European project has morphed from Kant's ideal of an international federation into something akin to the late Habsburg Empire".{{cite web | website=CNBC | title=Brexit: Why I'm voting to leave the European Union | url=https://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/17/brexit-why-im-voting-to-leave-the-european-union-commentary.html | date=17 June 2016 | accessdate=6 August 2022 | first=Edward | last=Chancellor}}

Awards

2007 George Polk Award – Financial Reporting, for his Ponzi Nation article in Institutional Investor.
2023 Hayek Book Prize, conferred by the Manhattan Institute, for The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest{{cite web |title=Hayek Book Prize and Lecture |url=https://manhattan.institute/hayek-book-prize-and-lecture# |website=Manhattan Institute |publisher=Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, Inc. |access-date=28 April 2023}}

Notable works

=As author=

{{cite book | first=Edward | last=Chancellor | title=Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation | date=June 1999 | edition=1st | isbn= 978-0374138585 | publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux}}
{{cite book | first=Edward | last=Chancellor | title=Crunch Time for Credit? | publisher=Harriman House | date=February 2005 | isbn=978-1-89759-753-8 }}
{{cite book | title=The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest | first=Edward | last=Chancellor | publisher=Allen Lane | date=July 2022 | isbn= 978-0241569160}}{{cite web | newspaper=The Scotsman | url=https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/books/book-review-the-price-of-time-by-edward-chancellor-3777542 | date=21 July 2022 | accessdate=7 August 2022 | first=Emma | last=Newlands | title=Book review: The Price of Time, by Edward Chancellor}}

=As editor=

Chancellor edited two anthologies of investment reports from Marathon Asset Management (London):{{cite journal |first=William | last=J. Bernstein | author-link=William J. Bernstein | title=Capital Returns: Investing through the Capital Cycle: A Money Manager's Reports 2002–15 (a review) |journal=Financial Analysts Journal |date=2016 |volume=11 |issue=1 |url=https://www.cfainstitute.org/en/research/financial-analysts-journal/2016/capital-returns-investing-through-the-capital-cycle |access-date=25 March 2022}}

{{cite book | first=Edward | last=Chancellor | title=Capital Account: A Money Manager's Reports from a Turbulent Decade (1993–2002) | publisher=Thomson/Texere | date=April 2004 | isbn=978-1-58799-180-6}}
{{cite book | first=Edward | last=Chancellor | title=Capital Returns: Investing Through the Capital Cycle: A Money Manager's Reports 2002–15| publisher=Palgrave Macmillan | date=November 2015 | isbn=978-1137571649}}

=As journalist=

{{cite journal | url=https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b150nxg9wbtc22/ponzi-nation | first=Edward | last=Chancellor | date=February 2007 | journal= Institutional Investor | accessdate=6 August 2022 | title=Ponzi Nation}}, for which Chancellor won the 2007 George Polk Award in Financial Reporting.

{{cite web | website=Reuters | url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-economy-stocks-breakingviews/breakingviews-chancellor-wall-street-is-firmly-in-wonderland-idUSKBN24A219 | title=Wall Street is firmly in Wonderland | first=Edward | last=Chancellor | date=9 July 2020 | accessdate=6 August 2022}}

References

External links

[http://seekingalpha.com/article/155470-edward-chancellor-asset-allocation-insights Edward Chancellor: Asset Allocation Insights], Seeking Alpha (2009)
[https://www.c-span.org/person/?66349/EdwardChancellor Edward Chancellor: History of the Gold Standard], C-SPAN (2012)
[https://moneyweek.com/419203/edward-chancellor-interview-capital-cycle Edward Chancellor: 'intelligent contrarians' should follow the capital cycle], Merryn Somerset Webb MoneyWeek (2015)

Category:1962 births

Category:Living people

Category:People from Richmond, London

Category:Asquith family

Category:Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

Category:Alumni of St Antony's College, Oxford

Category:English financial analysts

Category:English investment bankers

Category:English money managers

Category:Historians of economic thought

Category:English male journalists

Category:English financial writers