The Economic Research Council was founded in 1943 as the Joint Council for Economic and Monetary Research. Its origins go back at least a decade earlier to the 1930s, when a number of prominent people, concerned at the poverty around them in the midst of plenty, started questioning the use in Britain of a monetary system that had failed the nation in the past and was liable to go on perpetuating the sequence of boom, slump, boom of the 1920s.

If orthodox economics were to blame then its basic tenets should be challenged: and the challengers should be informed citizens who made it their business to learn more about the practical aspects of economics, and to get more people to join them in this process of enlightenment.

The Council has seven objectives. Reflecting its origins, the first is:

To promote education in the science of economics with particular reference to monetary practice.

The other six are:

To devote sympathetic and detailed study to presentations on economic and monetary subjects submitted by members and others, reporting thereon in the light of knowledge and experience.

To explore with other bodies the fields of monetary and economic thought in order to positively secure a maximum of common ground for purposes of public enlightenment.

To take all necessary steps to increase the interest of the general public in the objects of the   Council, by making known the results of study and research.

To publish reports and other documents embodying the results of study and research.

To encourage the establishment by other countries of bodies having aims similar to those of the Council, and to collaborate with such bodies to the public advantage.

To do such things as may be incidental or conducive to the attainment of these objectives.

Being a society of individual and corporate members broadly in agreement with its objects, the role of the council is primarily to provide opportunities for members and others to discuss, dispute, debate and generally seek enlightenment on economic issues of all kinds, particularly those concerned with monetary practice.

The Council has no connections with political parties or institutions. It attracts speakers and members from across the full spectrum of economic and political thought. It is neither a professional institute nor a learned society. Probably fewer than half of the members are qualified or professional economists. The only requirements for membership are: to be broadly in sympathy with the Council's objectives; to be elected by the Committee; and to pay the modest annual subscription. Council policy is to keep the annual subscription at the minimum needed for running it, and for most activities of the Council to pay their way without subsidy from the general body of members.

The part the Council seeks to play in the economic life of the nation is to be an agent for change, promoting improvements in the working of the economic system, particularly in regard to money and credit. The activities of the Council are all intended to reflect and develop this role.

President - The Rt Hon Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Chairman - Damon de Laszlo
Vice-Presidents - Professor Tim Congdon, Russell Lewis, Professor Brian Reading, David B. Smith
Hon. Secretary - Jim Bourlet
Research Director - Dan Lewis

Executive Committee
Damon de Laszlo (Chairman)
Tony Baron
Jim Bourlet
Peter L. Griffiths
Dan Lewis
Robert McGarvey
Dulcibel McKenzie
Christopher Meakin
Howard Mighell
John Mills
Alan B. Parker
John T. Warburton