In the past, Prof. Hanke taught economics at the Colorado School of Mines and at the University of California, Berkeley. He served on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, has been a Senior Adviser to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, has been an adviser to five foreign heads of state and five foreign cabinet ministers, and served as a State Counselor in both Lithuania and Montenegro. Hanke played an important role in establishing new currency regimes in Argentina, Estonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ecuador, Lithuania, and Montenegro. He has also held senior appointments in the governments of many other countries, including Albania, Kazakhstan, the United Arab Emirates, and Yugoslavia.

Prof. Hanke has been awarded seven honorary doctorate degrees and is an honorary professor at four foreign institutions. In 1998, he was named one of the twenty-five most influential people in the world by World Trade Magazine. In 2020, Hanke was named a Knight of the Order of the Flag.

Prof. Hanke is a well-known currency and commodity trader. Currently, he serves as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V. in Amsterdam and Chairman Emeritus of the Friedberg Mercantile Group Inc. in Toronto. During the 1990s, he served as President of Toronto Trust Argentina in Buenos Aires, the world’s best-performing emerging market mutual fund in 1995.

Prof. Hanke’s most recent book, which he co-authored with Jonas Herby and Lars Jonung, is Did Lockdowns Work? The Verdict on Covid Restrictions, which was published by the Institute of Economic Affairs in London in 2023.

Hanke and his wife, Liliane, reside in Baltimore and Paris