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So I look at the uh intersection of law,
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finance, history and politics. It's a
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lot of things to intersect, but the
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intersection actually is really a rich
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place to be. So where in in practical
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terms that means I'm looking at the
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institutions of banking and central
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banking uh the way that they overlap
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between government and and markets uh
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and looking at how they evolve through
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history.
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Key takeaways are that the my my primary
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research subject is the Federal Reserve,
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central banking generally, but
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especially the US Federal Reserve
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system. And the key takeaway is that the
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Federal Reserve is an institution that
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has been built by people. These people
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have desires, they have interests, they
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have histories, and they work sometimes
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strategically with a long-term vision of
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what the Fed should be and what it
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should become. And sometimes they are
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subject to the winds of history and and
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accident. And so, as uh a legal scholar
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and a financial historian, it's my job
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to look at how these subjects in history
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built institutions that changed over
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time. and what tools do they use
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including law but also force of
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personality norms traditions politics
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and other things like
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that. So it's it's a bit unusual uh to
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come at these questions from the
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backgrounds I'm coming at them from. So
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so again I'm I'm both a financial
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historian and a lawyer and lawyers are
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very interested in the practical and
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policy implications of their research.
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Historians aren't always, in fact,
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sometimes historians pride themselves in
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saying, "I am disconnected from the
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present. I'm very interested in the
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past." And what I do is take the past,
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what we know about these institutions
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and where they've come from. And then
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ask questions about the present. The
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Federal Reserve and its policies are
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some of the most uh debated and
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contentious issues that we see today. It
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wasn't always so. And to understand this
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contentious climate, we've got to
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understand just exactly what the Fed is,
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who within the Fed pulls the levers of
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power, how do they pull those levers of
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power, and to what end? And so in my
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work, again, this intersection of
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history and finance and politics and law
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gives us some of the answers that if you
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look at at these questions just from one
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lens, you just simply wouldn't
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get. I'm writing a book right now that
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is uh in its early stages that looks at
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one of the key decades in the
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development of central banking the world
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over which is the 1950s. This is a
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decade that's often overlooked when you
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look at the history of central banking
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and a key part of the of that decade
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what was happening during the in the
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United States and the Eisenhower and
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Truman administrations was balancing
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national policy against the threat of
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international communism. And so my work
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in on this project is to link our
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interests in financial security and
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specifically monetary stability which
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happens inside the Federal Reserve with
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national and international security. In
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other words, central banking and the
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shadow of the cold war. Uh I think that
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these are two areas that have a lot to
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say to each other again as a historian
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but also in the present. There's simply
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no question of national security in the
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United States today that doesn't have a
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financial component attached to it. And
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so my my project now then is to look
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taking again that same intersection of
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of law, history, finance and politics
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and see how we can put this question of
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financial security and national security
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in dialogue with each other.
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[Music]
