John Exter

Last updated
John Exter
JohnExter.jpeg
Born(1910-09-17)September 17, 1910
DiedFebruary 28, 2006(2006-02-28) (aged 95)
Alma mater College of Wooster
Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy
Harvard University
OccupationEconomist
Notable workExter's Pyramid

John Exter was an American economist, member of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve System, and founder of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. He is also known for creating Exter's Pyramid.

Contents

Life and career

Exter was born in 1910 and graduated from the College of Wooster (1928–1932). He then went to the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and in 1939, to Harvard University for graduate work in economics because of his interest in understanding the causes of the Great Depression.

After a stint at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during World War II, Exter joined the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System as an economist. In 1948 he served first as adviser to the Secretary of Finance of the Philippines and then to the Minister of Finance of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) on the establishment of central banks.

Between 1950 and 1953, Exter was the founder governor of the Central Bank of Ceylon. In 1953, he became the division chief for the Middle East at the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. In 1954, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York appointed him vice president in charge of international banking and precious metals operations.

Exter left the New York Fed in 1959 to join First National City Bank (then the world’s second largest bank) as a vice president. The next year he was promoted to senior vice president. As an international monetary adviser for the bank’s International Banking Group he had special responsibilities for relations with foreign central banks and governments. In 1972 he took early retirement to become a private consultant.

Exter was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee for Monetary Research & Education, the Mont Pelerin Society, and the Pilgrims of the United States.

He and his wife Marion had four children.

Exter's Pyramid

A modern adaptation of Exter's Pyramid Exter.png
A modern adaptation of Exter's Pyramid

Exter is known for creating Exter's Pyramid (also known as Exter's Golden Pyramid and Exter's Inverted Pyramid) for visualizing the organization of asset classes in terms of risk and size. In Exter's scheme, gold forms the small base of most reliable value, and asset classes on progressively higher levels are more risky. The larger size of asset classes at higher levels is representative of the higher total worldwide notional value of those assets. While Exter's original pyramid placed Third World debt at the top, today derivatives hold this dubious honor.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central bank</span> Government body that manages currency and monetary policy

A central bank, reserve bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the currency and monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the monetary base. Many central banks also have supervisory or regulatory powers to ensure the stability of commercial banks in their jurisdiction, to prevent bank runs, and in some cases also to enforce policies on financial consumer protection and against bank fraud, money laundering, or terrorism financing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Reserve</span> Central banking system of the United States of America

The Federal Reserve System is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of financial panics led to the desire for central control of the monetary system in order to alleviate financial crises. Over the years, events such as the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Great Recession during the 2000s have led to the expansion of the roles and responsibilities of the Federal Reserve System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monetary policy of the United States</span> Political Policy

The monetary policy of The United States is the set of policies which the Federal Reserve follows to achieve its twin objectives of high employment and stable inflation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fractional-reserve banking</span> System of banking

Fractional-reserve banking is the system of banking in all countries worldwide, under which banks that take deposits from the public keep only part of their deposit liabilities in liquid assets as a reserve, typically lending the remainder to borrowers. Bank reserves are held as cash in the bank or as balances in the bank's account at the central bank. Fractional-reserve banking differs from the hypothetical alternative model, full-reserve banking, in which banks would keep all depositor funds on hand as reserves.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is a committee within the Federal Reserve System that is charged under United States law with overseeing the nation's open market operations. This Federal Reserve committee makes key decisions about interest rates and the growth of the United States money supply. Under the terms of the original Federal Reserve Act, each of the Federal Reserve banks was authorized to buy and sell in the open market bonds and short term obligations of the United States Government, bank acceptances, cable transfers, and bills of exchange. Hence, the reserve banks were at times bidding against each other in the open market. In 1922, an informal committee was established to execute purchases and sales. The Banking Act of 1933 formed an official FOMC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Bank of Sri Lanka</span> Monetary authority and regulator of all licensed banks of Sri Lanka

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka is the monetary authority of Sri Lanka. It was established in 1950 under the Monetary Law Act No.58 of 1949 (MLA) and in terms of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Act No. 16 of 2023, the CBSL is a body corporate with perpetual succession and a common seal. The Central Bank has administrative and financial autonomy. The CBSL has two main boards in operation, namely,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of the Federal Reserve</span>

The Federal Reserve System has faced various criticisms since it was authorized in 1913. Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman and his fellow monetarist Anna Schwartz criticized the Fed's response to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 arguing that it greatly exacerbated the Great Depression. More recent prominent critics include former Congressman Ron Paul.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Kohn</span> American economist (born 1942)

Donald Lewis Kohn is an American economist who served as the 18th vice chair of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2010. Prior to his term as vice chair, Kohn served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, taking office in 2002. Fed's veteran, he retired after 40 years at the central bank, currently serving on the Financial Policy Committee for the Bank of England and as a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis</span> Member Bank of Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the United States' central bank. Missouri is the only state to have two main Federal Reserve Banks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederic Mishkin</span> American economist

Frederic Stanley "Rick" Mishkin is an American economist and Alfred Lerner professor of Banking and Financial Institutions at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. He was a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2008.

Modern monetary theory or modern money theory (MMT) is a heterodox macroeconomic theory that describes currency as a public monopoly and unemployment as evidence that a currency monopolist is overly restricting the supply of the financial assets needed to pay taxes and satisfy savings desires. According to MMT, governments do not need to worry about accumulating debt since they can create new money by using fiscal policy in order to pay interest. MMT argues that the primary risk once the economy reaches full employment is inflation, which acts as the only constraint on spending. MMT also argues that inflation can be addressed by increasing taxes on everyone to reduce the spending capacity of the private sector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Randall Kroszner</span> American economist

Randall S. Kroszner is an American economist who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2006 to 2009. Kroszner chaired Fed's board Committee on Supervision and Regulation of Banking Institutions during the global financial crisis. He has been professor of economics at the University of Chicago since the 1990s, with various leaves, and named Norman R. Bobins Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2009, and serves as a senior advisor for Patomak Partners.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James B. Bullard</span> Federal Reserve Bank president

James Brian Bullard is the former chief executive officer and 12th president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a position he held from 2008 until August 14, 2023. In July 2023, he was named dean of the Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. School of Business at Purdue University.

Deshamanya Gamani Corea was a Sri Lankan economist, civil servant and diplomat. He was also the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1974 to 1984, Ceylon's Ambassador to the EEC, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Planning and Economic Affairs of Ceylon and the Senior Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Ceylon.

Merennage Ranji Pemsiri Salgado was a Sri Lankan born economist and international civil servant. He was a former Assistant Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Monetary policy in the United States is associated with interest rates and availability of credit.

Deshamanya Neville Ubeysingha Jayawardena (1908–2002) was a Sri Lankan Senator, economist, banker and entrepreneur. He was the first Ceylonese Governor of the Central Bank of Ceylon and founder of the Mercantile Group of Companies that formed the Merc Bank Sri Lanka, Sampath Bank and the former Mercantile Credit Ltd. He was educated at St. Servatius' College, Matara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John C. Williams (economist)</span>

John Carroll Williams is the president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, having also served as president of Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco from 2011 to 2018. He is currently serving as vice chairman of the Federal Open Market Committee.

Deshamanya Weligamage Don Lakshman popularly known as Professor W. D. Lakshman is a Sri Lankan economist, professor, lecturer, academic and author who also served as the 15th Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka and current chairman of the Monetary Board of the CBSL. He is regarded as one of the prominent economists of the country mainly well known for his immense contributions to policy related activities and for being specialised in the field of Economics.

P. Nandalal Weerasinghe is a Sri Lankan economist and banker who is also currently serving as the 17th Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. A career officer in the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, serving as its chief economist and senior deputy governor. He has also served as an alternative executive director at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC representing the countries such as Sri Lanka, Bhutan, India and Bangladesh from January 2010 to August 2012. He has also previously acted as a chairman of the monetary policy committee and foreign reserve management committee of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

References