Walter Bagehot

1826 - 1877

About the Author

Walter Bagehot (1826-1877), a British journalist and early editor of The Economist, specialized in institutional economic issues. He had a particular interest in central banks, interest rates, and the money supply. His writings on how monetary institutions (today called Central Banks) behave and why, and how they interact with “credit cycles” (today called business cycles) influenced later institutions from the Federal Reserve System to the International Monetary Fund. [The image comes from “The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.”]

In The Library:

• author: Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (1873)
• author: The Postulates of English Political Economy (1885)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, 10 vols. (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 1 (Memoir, Early Essays) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 2 (Historical & Financial Essays) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 3 (Historical & Literary Essays) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 4 (Political & Literary Essays) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 5 (Historical & Financial Essays; The English Constitution) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 6 (Lombard Street, Essays on Guizot & Cairnes, The Depreciation of Silver) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 7 (Economic Studies and Essays) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 8 (Physics and Politics, Currency Monopoly, and Essays) (1915)
• author: The Works and Life of Walter Bagehot, vol. 9 (Essays from the Economist, the Saturday Review) (1915)

Quotations:

• Bagehot on Government, the banking system, and moral hazard (1873) (11 January, 2011)
• Bagehot on the monopoly central bank (1873) (11 February, 2012)