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Edward Chancellor

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Edward Chancellor
BornError: Need valid birth date: year, month, day
Richmond, England
Occupation(s)Financial historian, finance journalist, hedge fund strategist, investment banker
Known forIdentification of economic bubbles; author of Devil Take the Hindmost, Crunch-Time for Credit?, The Price of Time
Notable workDevil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation; Crunch Time for Credit?; The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest

John "Edward" Horner Chancellor (born December 1962) is a distinguished British financial historian, finance journalist, and former hedge fund strategist and investment banker. In 2016, the Financial Analysts Journal recognized him as "one of the great financial writers of our era," while in 2022, Fortune honored him as "one of the greatest financial historians alive." Chancellor is noted for his prescient identification of significant economic bubbles in his publications: Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (1999, addressing the dot-com bubble), Crunch-Time for Credit? (2005, concerning the credit bubble), and The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest (2022, focusing on the everything bubble).

Early life and education

Born in Richmond, England, Chancellor is the son of John Paget Chancellor, a barrister and editor of Knowledge. His family lineage traces back to Scottish gentry with estates at Quothquan dating from 1432. His sister is the actress Anna Chancellor.

He graduated with first-class honors in Modern History from Trinity College, Cambridge and subsequently earned a Master of Philosophy in Modern History from St Antony's College, Oxford.

Investment career

Following his academic pursuits, Chancellor began his professional journey at investment bank Lazard Brothers, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Between 2008 and 2014, he held a senior role within the asset allocation and capital markets research divisions at Boston-based investment firm Grantham, Mayo, van Otterloo & Co. (GMO).

Author

In 1999, Chancellor authored Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation, which was long-listed as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Martin Vander Weyer of the Spectator described it as a more captivating alternative to Charles P. Kindleberger's 1978 classic Manias, Panics and Crashes. William J. Bernstein in 2022 praised it as "one of the most engaging and incisive accounts of financial manias ever written," emphasizing Chancellor’s exceptional literary craftsmanship.

Chancellor’s 2005 publication, Crunch Time for Credit?, examined the credit expansion phenomena in both the US and UK markets. This work evolved from a report he prepared for hedge fund manager Crispin Odey concerning the escalating housing and credit bubbles. Charles Moore observed that Chancellor accurately anticipated critical aspects of these credit surges, such as dependence on central bank policies, consumer expenditures driven by home equity extraction, and escalating government deficits.

In 2022, Chancellor released The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest, which critiques central banks’ strategies involving prolonged interest rate reductions and ongoing quantitative easing aimed at stimulating growth through inflated asset prices. He contended that such policies have generated an all-encompassing asset bubble, exacerbated wealth inequality—particularly among different generations—and forecasted substantial inflation ahead. Martin Wolf from the Financial Times characterized it as "a polemic against everything [Ben] Bernanke stands for," contrasting it with Bernanke’s own 2022 publication. Martin Vander Weyer lauded it as more engaging than Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Emma Duncan of the Sunday Times praised Chancellor’s timing, highlighting how his earlier works had anticipated major speculative bubbles. Finance author Felix Martin described it as a "timely warning" about central bank missteps and advised investors to "sell all your stocks." The book was also longlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award in 2022.

At the 2023 Hayek Lecture, journalist John Tierney introduced Chancellor by noting his "extremely rare gift" for timely analysis. Tierney acclaimed The Price of Time, which earned Chancellor the Hayek Award, for its foresight, scholarly depth, and stylistic elegance.

Journalist

While serving as a full-time investment manager and following that period, Chancellor contributed opinion articles to the financial commentary platform Reuters Breakingviews and the magazine Institutional Investor. His writings also appeared in various other financial outlets, such as the Wall Street Journal, MoneyWeek, the New York Review of Books, and the Financial Times.

In 2008, Chancellor was honored with the 2007 George Polk Award for Financial Reporting due to his article Ponzi Nation published in Institutional Investor. This accolade acknowledged his prescient analysis of risky behaviors, interconnected asset exposures, subprime mortgage dangers, and minimally regulated hedge funds that posed threats to the global financial system. He became the first contributor from Institutional Investor to be granted this distinction.

Prior to the 2016 Brexit referendum, Chancellor openly advocated for the United Kingdom’s departure from the EU, criticizing the European Union’s evolution from Immanuel Kant’s vision of a federation into an entity more akin to the disintegrating late Habsburg Empire.

Awards

As author

  • Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999)
  • Crunch Time for Credit? (Harriman House, 2005)
  • The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest (Allen Lane, 2022)

As editor

Chancellor served as editor for two collections of investment commentaries from Marathon Asset Management based in London:

  • Capital Account: A Money Manager's Reports from a Turbulent Decade (1993–2002) (Thomson/Texere, 2004)
  • Capital Returns: Investing Through the Capital Cycle: A Money Manager's Reports 2002–15 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

As journalist

  • Chancellor’s piece Ponzi Nation, featured in Institutional Investor (2007), earned him the George Polk Award for Financial Reporting
  • Wall Street is firmly in Wonderland, published by Reuters in 2020

See also

External links

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