After Hong Kong reinstated its currency board in 1983, Hanke began to collaborate with his fellow Johns Hopkins Professor, and Margaret Thatcher's personal economic adviser, Sir Alan Walters, on the subject of currency boards. A currency board is a monetary authority that issues a local currency that is fully backed by a foreign reserve currency, and which is freely convertible with the foreign reserve currency at a fixed exchange rate. Walters was a key advocate of the reestablishment of Hong Kong's currency board.