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Not Just the Great Contraction: Friedman and Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960

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  • Michael D. Bordo
  • Hugh Rockoff

Abstract

A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960 published in 1963 was written as part of an extensive NBER research project on Money and Business Cycles started in the 1950s. The project resulted in three more books and many important articles. A Monetary History was designed to provide historical evidence for the modern quantity theory of money. The principal lessons of the modern quantity theory of the long-run neutrality of money, the transitory effects of monetary policy on real economic activity, and the importance of stable money and of monetary rules have all been absorbed in modern macro models. A Monetary History , unlike the other books, has endured the test of time and has become a classic whose reputation has grown with age. It succeeded because it was based on narrative and not an explicit model. The narrative methodology pioneered by Friedman and Schwartz and the beautifully written story still captures the imaginations of new generations of economists.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael D. Bordo & Hugh Rockoff, 2013. "Not Just the Great Contraction: Friedman and Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960," NBER Working Papers 18828, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18828
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Ten Years After Bear
      by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets on 2018-03-12 12:26:11

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    Cited by:

    1. Barry Eichengreen & Arnaud J. Mehl & Livia Chițu & Gary Richardson, 2014. "Mutual Assistance between Federal Reserve Banks, 1913-1960 as Prolegomena to the TARGET2 Debate," NBER Working Papers 20267, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Michael D. Bordo, 2014. "Tales from the Bretton Woods," NBER Working Papers 20270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Dumitriu, Ramona & Stefanescu, Razvan, 2013. "Provocările politicii monetare [Monetary policy challenges]," MPRA Paper 50261, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 28 Sep 2013.
    4. Monnet, Eric & Velde, François R., 2020. "Money, Banking, and Old-School Historical Economics," CEPR Discussion Papers 15348, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Allan H. Meltzer, 2014. "Slow Recovery with Low Inflation," Book Chapters, in: Martin Neil Baily & John B. Taylor (ed.), Across the Great Divide: New Perspectives on the Financial Crisis, chapter 8, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    6. Irfan Ahmed & Claudio Socci & Francesca Severini & Qaiser Rafique Yasser & Rosita Pretaroli, 2018. "Forecasting investment and consumption behavior of economic agents through dynamic computable general equilibrium model," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 4(1), pages 1-21, December.
    7. Harris Dellas & George Tavlas, 2019. "The dog that didn’t bark: the curious case of Lloyd Mints, Milton Friedman and the emergence of monetarism," Working Papers 264, Bank of Greece.
    8. Patrick Newman, 2016. "Expansionary Monetary Policy at the Federal Reserve in the 1920s," Advances in Austrian Economics, in: Studies in Austrian Macroeconomics, volume 20, pages 105-134, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    9. James R. Lothian & George S. Tavlas, 2018. "How Friedman and Schwartz Became Monetarists," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 757-787, June.
    10. Pooyan Amir-Ahmadi & Gustavo S. Cortes & Marc D. Weidenmier, 2020. "Regional Monetary Policies and the Great Depression," NBER Working Papers 26695, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Michael D. Bordo, 2013. "Review of Ben S. Bernanke: The Federal Reserve and the Financial Crisis," Economics Working Papers 13109, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    12. Dellas, Harris & Tavlas, George, 2019. "The Dog that Didn’t Bark: The Curious Case of Lloyd Mints, Milton Friedman and the Emergence of Monetarism," CEPR Discussion Papers 13858, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. David Laidler, 2013. "Reassessing the Thesis of the Monetary History," University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute Working Papers 20135, University of Western Ontario, Economic Policy Research Institute.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B22 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Macroeconomics
    • N1 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations

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