Charles Goodhart

Charles Goodhart appears in The laws of the office revisited as the economist behind Goodhart’s Law. The episode identifies him as a former adviser to the Bank of England and professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, then turns his monetary-policy observation into a general rule about measurement and control.

His role in the source is not only historical attribution. The episode uses his idea to connect a teenage cashier’s scanning metric, hospital emergency targets, and broader Workplace Metric Gaming into the same institutional pattern: once a number becomes a control target, people may optimize the number rather than the real outcome.

Connections

• Goodhart’s Law - named principle attributed to him.
• Workplace Metric Gaming - workplace mechanism the episode uses to make the law concrete.
• Planet Money and Economic Way Of Thinking - source show and broader reasoning frame.