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How was the Quantitative Easing Program of the 1930s Unwound?

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Listed author(s):
  • Matthew Jaremski
  • Gabriel Mathy

Abstract

Outside of the recent past, excess reserves have only concerned policymakers in one other period: the Great Depression. The data show that excess reserves in the 1930s were never actively unwound through a reduction in the monetary base. Nominal economic growth swelled required reserves while an exogenous reduction in monetary gold inflows due to war embargoes in Europe allowed excess reserves to naturally decline towards zero. Excess reserves fell rapidly in early 1941 and would have unwound fully even without the entry of the United States into World War II. As such, policy tightening was at no point necessary and could have contributed to the 1937-1938 Recession.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 23788.

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Date of creation: Sep 2017
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23788
Note: DAE
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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
  • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
  • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

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