American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Not Just the Great Contraction: Friedman and Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960
American Economic Review
vol. 103,
no. 3, May 2013
(pp. 61–65)
Abstract
Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz published A Monetary History of the United States: 1867 to 1960 with Princeton University Press in 1963, to critical acclaim. Since then the book's reputation has grown and it clearly has become one of the most influential volumes in economics in the twentieth century. In this paper we document the extraordinary impact of A Monetary History and argue that the key to this success was the use of the "narrative approach" to the problem of identifying the effects of monetary policy on economic activity.Citation
Bordo, Michael D., and Hugh Rockoff. 2013. "Not Just the Great Contraction: Friedman and Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960." American Economic Review, 103 (3): 61–65. DOI: 10.1257/aer.103.3.61Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- B31 History of Economic Thought: Individuals
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- E44 Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
- E52 Monetary Policy
- E58 Central Banks and Their Policies
- N11 Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
- N12 Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: U.S.; Canada: 1913-