During this time, Hanke developed and taught courses in mineral and petroleum economics,[40] while completing his Ph.D. dissertation on the impact of meter installation on municipal water demand.

[42][failed verification] At present, Hanke teaches courses in applied economics and finance[43] that are widely recognized as a gateway for Hopkins students to gain employment on Wall Street.

[4] Hanke is also a senior fellow and director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute,[49][50] a special counselor to the Center for Financial Stability,[51] and a member of the Charter Council of the Society for Economic Measurement.

[52] Hanke is a senior advisor at Renmin University's International Monetary Research Institute, in association with Nobel laureate Robert Mundell (1932—2021) of Columbia.

During his initial years in the department, Hanke focused on issues including water pricing and demand, benefit-cost analysis, system design, and leak detection and control.

[56] While at the CEA, Hanke led a team that re-wrote the federal government's Principles and Guidelines for Water and Land Related Resources Implementation Studies, to include more rigorous benefit-cost analysis requirements.

[68][74][75] In 1982, Hanke left the CEA, joining a number of influential Reagan administration supply-siders, including Martin Anderson, Norman B. Ture, and Paul Craig Roberts.

[6] This measure, sponsored by Senators Phil Graham, Bob Dole, Connie Mack, Jesse Helms, and Steve Symms allowed U.S. contributions to the International Monetary Fund to be used for the purpose of establishing currency boards.

[87] In 2013, Hanke founded the Troubled Currencies Project, a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins University and the Cato Institute, in order to track exchange-rate and inflation data in countries including Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela.

[91][50] Hanke's views on monetary policy are influenced by his experience as a currency and commodities trader, as well as by the economics of Milton Friedman, Robert Mundell, and Friedrich Hayek.

[103] In collaboration with his then-post-doctoral student, Kurt Schuler, Hanke developed a blueprint for a currency board reform package,[18][104] which he proposed in a number of countries throughout the 1990s, including Albania,[7] Argentina,[8][9] Bulgaria,[10][11] Bosnia and Herzegovina,[12] Ecuador,[13] Estonia,[14][15] Indonesia,[16] Jamaica,[17] Kazakhstan,[18] Lithuania,[14] Montenegro,[19] Russia,[20][21][22] Venezuela,[23] and Yugoslavia.

[108] During the 1989 to 1991 period, Hanke worked closely with Congressman José María Ibarbia and his colleagues (the Alsogaray faction) in the Argentine Congress to develop a blueprint for a currency board system.

The proposal was contained in Hanke and Kurt Schuler's 1991 monograph "A Currency Board Solution for the Albanian Lek", published by the International Freedom Foundation.

Acting in his capacity as Stoyanov's adviser, Hanke continued to be deeply involved in fine-tuning and steering his idea to full adoption, throughout the drafting, legislative, and implementation process.

And in 2015, Varna Free University awarded Hanke the title doctor honoris causa, in honor of his scholarship on currency boards and his reform efforts in Bulgaria.

In the early 1990s, George Selgin, Joseph Sinkey Jr., and Kurt Schuler began working with Elena Leontjeva of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute (LFMI) on a reform proposal for Lithuania's central bank.

[129] In the aftermath of the Yugoslav civil war, local officials and an IMF team set about to create a central bank for Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the principles of a currency board.

Hanke began serving as a special adviser to the U.S. government in December 1996[6] and was tasked with ensuring that the central bank law resulted in a currency board system that was as orthodox as possible.

In the end, the seeds he planted took root and won out, though I am not sure whether it was because the Serbs required the changes he proposed or whether the U.S. Treasury did.In August 1997, upon urging from the International Monetary Fund, Indonesia adopted a floating exchange rate for its currency, the rupiah.

[135][136] During his time as Suharto's adviser, Hanke had an unprecedented level of access to the Indonesian president and even played a role in the dismissal of Indonesia's Central Bank governor.

It garnered the support of notable economists, including Gary Becker, Rudiger Dornbusch, Milton Friedman, Merton Miller, Robert Mundell, and Sir Alan Walters.

[144] Later that year in July 1999, Hanke was appointed state counselor – a cabinet-level position – and began advising Montenegrin President Milo Đukanović on issues including currency reform.

[145][146] After assessing the political and economic realities on the ground, Hanke advised Đukanović that Montenegro should abandon the faltering Yugoslav dinar and adopt a foreign currency, the German Mark, as its own.

For example, in late 1985, he was among the first to correctly predict that oil would fall below $10 per barrel,[155][156] and in 1993, he joined a successful speculative attack on the French franc, which elicited an article in Paris Match, "Scenario-fiction Pour Une Journée De Cocagne: Hunt, Hanke, Goldsmith Tsutsumi Et Les Autres...".

Although not officially involved in the case, Hanke, Culp, and Miller made headlines when they revealed that Metallgesellschaft's oil futures hedge was sound, and that it was Deutsche Bank who was responsible for the collapse of the $1.3 billion position.

[166][167][168] After much outcry on social media and a petition to Johns Hopkins University signed by nearly 300 Vietnamese academics demanding an apology, Hanke issued a correction on Twitter stating that the country has a "perfect" record in its fight against COVID-19;[169][170] the original tweet was also deleted.

[168][171] In an interview with Voice of America following the controversy, Hanke described Vietnam's response to the COVID-19 pandemic was "excellent", and he cited the country's poor record of press freedom as reasons behind his initial suspicion of its coronavirus data.

[179] PolitiFact concluded that Hanke had "repeatedly elevated false claims about the pandemic", citing his previous remark on Twitter,[180] which stated that national lockdowns and COVID-19 vaccine policies are "fascist".

The family of the man also released a statement condemning speculation about links to vaccination..[182] Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Hanke has voiced opposition to the sanctions against Russia, calling them "for losers".

[186][187] Hanke was also condemned by former CNN Norway's managing director Morten Øverbye,[188] as well as Miroslav Wlachovský, the foreign policy adviser to Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger.