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.”]
