Edward Chancellor wins 2023 Hayek Book Prize

New York, NY – The Manhattan Institute (MI) is pleased to announce that Edward Chancellor has won the 19^th annual Hayek Book Prize for his book The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest (Grove Atlantic, 2022).

Chancellor delivered the annual Hayek Lecture in New York City on June 7 and remarked that he was “deeply honored to be standing here and delighted that the prize I’m receiving today is named after Friedrich Hayek, a hero of mine.” Chancellor will also receive a $50,000 monetary award for the prize.  

Chancellor's book, which traces the history of interest from its origins in ancient Mesopotamia, through debates about usury in Restoration Britain and John Law's ill-fated Mississippi scheme, to the global credit booms of the twenty-first century, was among five other finalists:

• Hayek: A Life, 1899-1950, by Bruce Caldwell and Hansjoerg Klausinger (Chicago University Press, 2022)
• Superabundance: The Story of Population Growth, Innovation, and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet, by Marian L. Tupy and Gale L. Pooley (Cato Institute, 2022)
• The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World, by Samuel Gregg (Encounter Books, 2022)
• Visible Hand: A Wealth of Notions on the Miracle of the Market, by Matthew Hennessey (Encounter Books, 2022)
• Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City, by Jorge Almazan and Studio Lab (Oro Editions, 2022)

Upon learning of his award, Edward Chancellor said, “I’m delighted and honored to be the latest recipient of the Hayek Prize. As an economist, Hayek understood the vital role of interest, and the disastrous outcomes that occur when central bankers choose the wrong rate - as they are prone to do!”

Hayek Book Prize jury chair John Tierney also remarked, “The Price of Time is both an erudite history and a remarkably prescient guide to the financial crises in today’s headlines. In lively and lucid prose, Chancellor explains how the manipulation of interest rates has destabilized banks and the rest of the economy. Invoking Hayek’s long-neglected monetary theories and warnings, he shows how recent policies have encouraged reckless speculation, stifled productive investments, worsened income inequality, and fueled the populist anger that threatens capitalism and democracy.”

Please visit our website for a video and photos of the lecture.

About the Hayek Lecture and Book Prize 

Political philosopher and Nobel laureate F. A. Hayek, author of groundbreaking works such as The Road to Serfdom and The Constitution of Liberty, was the key figure in the twentieth-century revival of classical liberalism. He was also a formative influence on the Manhattan Institute. When our founder, Sir Antony Fisher, asked how best to reverse the erosion of freedom, Hayek advised him not to begin with politics per se but to fight first on the battlefield of ideas. The Hayek Lecture and Prize affirm and celebrate this mission.