In 1964, Hudson, who had just received his master's degree in economics, joined Chase Manhattan Bank's economics research department as a balance of payments specialist. His task was to identify the payment capacity of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile. Based on export earnings and other international payment data, Hudson had to determine the income the bank could derive from the debt that these countries had accumulated. He recalled that, "I soon found that the Latin American countries I analyzed were fully 'loaned up'. There were no more hard currency inflows available to extract as interest on new loans or bond issues. In fact, there was capital flight." Among other tasks that Hudson performed at Chase Manhattan was an analysis of the balance of payments of the US oil industry and the tracking of "dirty" money that ended up in Swiss banks. According to Hudson, this work gave him invaluable experience in understanding how banks and the financial sector work as well as understanding how bank accounting and real life correlate.
