George Selgin on Contextualizing the Great Depression and its Implications on Monetary Policy Today

George Selgin on Contextualizing the Great Depression and its Implications on Monetary Policy Today

George Selgin is a senior fellow and director emeritus at the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, as well as the author of the new book titled False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933-1947. George returns to the show to discuss the complicated economic history of the Great Depression, how that history has led us to the macro-events of 2008, 2010, and 2020, how we can apply lessons from the Great Depression to macroeconomic policy to the current moment, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.

Recorded on May 13th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:25 - Welcoming George Selgin and False Dawn

00:03:25 - Why Another Book on the Great Depression?

00:06:37 - The New Deal's Role in Recovery from the Great Depression

00:08:50 - Myths About the New Deal Overview of the Great Depression

00:12:30 - Measuring Unemployment

00:16:42 - The Gold Standard and the Great Depression

00:27:05 - Helpful: Suspension of the Gold Standard and the Bank Holiday

00:35:47 - Unhelpful: Reconstruction Finance Corporation

00:38:02 - Helpful: Creation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation

00:42:31 - Unhelpful: The National Recovery Administration

00:48:42 - Unhelpful: Fiscal and Monetary Policy and Ignoring Keynes

00:57:17 - Lessons for Today: Uncertainty

01:00:56 - The Lesson of Level Targeting

01:06:42 - Breaching Contracts

01:11:40 - Outro

Jaksot(522)

42 – Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde on European Economic History and Macroeconomic Modeling

42 – Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde on European Economic History and Macroeconomic Modeling

Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde is a professor of economics and director of graduate studies of economics at the University of Pennsylvania. He joins the show to discuss both his extensive work in economic history as well as macroeconomic modeling. David and Jesus discuss the economic history of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s and the events that led to the rise of the Nazis as well as more recent events such as the struggles facing the Eurozone. They also discuss debates surrounding the usefulness of current-day macroeconomic models. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Jesus' webpage: http://economics.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/ David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Related links: "The econometrics of DSGE models" by Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde http://economics.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/econometricsDSGE.pdf "Computing DSGE Models with Recursive Preferences and Stochastic Volatility" by Dario Caldara, Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde, Juan Rubio-Ramirez, and Wen Yao https://www.federalreserve.gov/pubs/feds/2012/201204/201204pap.pdf "The Trouble with Macroeconomics" by Paul Romer https://paulromer.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WP-Trouble.pdf

30 Tammi 20171h 2min

41 - Gauti Eggertsson on the Zero-Lower Bound and Liquidity Traps

41 - Gauti Eggertsson on the Zero-Lower Bound and Liquidity Traps

Gauti Eggertsson is a professor of economics at Brown University. Previously, he worked at the research departments at the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He joins the show to discuss his work on the history of liquidity traps and extremely low and even negative interest rates. He and David discuss examples from the Great Depression to Japan in the 1990s to today. Gauti also shares his thoughts on the Fed's quantitative easing (QE) program and why it failed to return the economy back to normal. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Gauti's Brown University homepage: https://sites.google.com/site/gautieggertsson/home David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Related links: "The Zero Bound on Interest Rates and Optimal Monetary Policy" by Gauti Eggertsson and Michael Woodford https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/the-zero-bound-on-interest-rates-and-optimal-monetary-policy/ "Great Expectations and the End of the Depression" by Gauti Eggertsson https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr234.pdf "The Fed's Dirty Little Secret" by David Beckworth http://people.wku.edu/david.beckworth/fed_dirty.pdf "Japan's Trap" by Paul Krugman https://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/japans_trap.pdf

23 Tammi 20171h

40 - Anat Admati on Debt, Equity, and Financial Instability

40 - Anat Admati on Debt, Equity, and Financial Instability

Anat Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and co-author of the book, *The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It.* She joins the show to discuss her book, which argues that America's banking system continues to be dangerously fragile even in the aftermath of the Dodd-Frank Act. Anat argues that banks take on too much leverage and that they should be required to hold more equity. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Anat's Stanford profile: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/anat-r-admati David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Anat's Twitter: @anatadmati Related: *The Bankers' New Clothes: What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do About It* by Anat Admati and Martin Hellwig http://bankersnewclothes.com/ Anat's paper, "It Takes a Village to Maintain a Dangerous Financial System" http://bankersnewclothes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Takes-a-Village-May-2016.pdf

16 Tammi 20171h 3min

39 - Allan Meltzer on the Monetarist Counterrevolution and Economic Reforms

39 - Allan Meltzer on the Monetarist Counterrevolution and Economic Reforms

In this week's special episode recorded in front of a live audience, David interviews the renowned monetary economist, Allan Meltzer. Meltzer, a professor of political economy at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the founders of the monetarist school of thought discusses his long career in academia and policy. David and Allan also discuss current central bank policy, both in the United States and abroad, and how monetary policy can become more rules-based. Finally, Allan also argues many of our current economic problems are real, not nominal, and he hopes a Trump Administration can address some of these woes. Note: this episode took place before the December 2016 interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Allan Meltzer's bio: http://tepper.cmu.edu/our-faculty-and-research/about-our-faculty/faculty-profiles/am05/meltzer-allan David's Twitter: @DavidBeckworth Related links: "A History of the Federal Reserve (Volumes I and II)" by Allan Meltzer (University of Chicago Press) http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo3634061.html http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo6887672.html "Keynes's Monetary Theory: A Different Interpretation" by Allan Meltzer (Cambridge University Press) https://www.amazon.com/Keyness-Monetary-Theory-Different-Interpretation/dp/0521022754

9 Tammi 201753min

38 - Ylan Mui on the Fed Beat and Trumponomics

38 - Ylan Mui on the Fed Beat and Trumponomics

Ylan Mui covers White House economic policy for the Washington Post. Previously, she covered the Federal Reserve. Today, she joins the show to discuss what it is like to attend Fed press conferences and write on the technical nuances of Fed policy. David and Ylan also discuss what a Trump Administration might mean for economic issues ranging from trade to infrastructure spending to monetary policy. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Ylan's archive: https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/ylan-q-mui/ David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Ylan's Twitter: @ylanmui

2 Tammi 20171h

37 - Laura Birg and Anna Goeddeke on Christmas Economics

37 - Laura Birg and Anna Goeddeke on Christmas Economics

In this week's special episode, David discusses the economics of Christmas with Laura Birg, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Goettingen, and Anna Goeddke, a professor of economics at the ESB Business School at Reutlingen University. Topics include the dead-weight loss of gift-giving, Christmas' effects on seasonal GDP, increases in alcohol consumption, and the effect of secularization on Christmas celebrations. [Note: We will be taking a break next week for the holidays, but we will be back the following Monday, January 2, with the Washington Post's Ylan Mui!] David's blog: macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Anna's VoxEU profile: http://voxeu.org/users/annagoeddeke0 Anna's Twitter: @annagoeddeke Laura's University of Goettingen profile: https://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/362254.html Related links: "Christmas Economics – A Sleigh Ride" by Laura Birg and Anna Goeddke (2014) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2526055 "The Seasonal Cycle and the Business Cycle" by Robert Barsky and Jeffrey Miron (1988) http://www.nber.org/papers/w2688 "The Business Cycle Effects of Christmas" by YI Wen (2001) https://www.discuto.io/sites/default/files/christmas2010.pdf We Wish you a Merry Christmas Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

19 Joulu 201654min

36 - The Macroeconomics of Star Wars and Star Trek

36 - The Macroeconomics of Star Wars and Star Trek

In this week's special episode, David compares and contrasts the economics of the Star Wars and Star Trek universes. He is joined by Zachary Feinstein, an Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and Manu Saadia, author of *Trekonomics.* Topics include the economic fallout from the destruction of the Death Star, the absence of money in Star Trek, and whether a universe can really eliminate scarcity. David's blog: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Manu's *Trekonomics* website: https://trekonomics.tumblr.com/ (you can order the book, *Trekonomics,* here as well) Manu's Twitter: @trekonomics Zach's faculty profile: https://sites.wustl.edu/fictionomics/ Zach's Twitter: @FictionomicsWU Related links: "It's a Trap: Emperor Palpatine's Poison Pill" by Zachary Feinstein https://arxiv.org/pdf/1511.09054.pdf "The Case for the Empire" by Jonathan Last http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-case-for-the-empire/article/2540

12 Joulu 201658min

35 - Peter Conti-Brown on *The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve*

35 - Peter Conti-Brown on *The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve*

Peter Conti-Brown is an Assistant Professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He joins the show to discuss his new book, *The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve,* which exams the evolution of the Federal Reserve and what central bank independence really means. Peter also shares his thoughts on what a Trump presidency might mean for monetary policy. David's bio: http://macromarketmusings.blogspot.com/ Peter's UPenn bio: https://lgst.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/30645/ David's Twitter: @davidbeckworth Peter's Twitter: @PeterContiBrown Related links: *The Power and Independence of the Federal Reserve* by Peter Conti-Brown https://www.amazon.com/Power-Independence-Federal-Reserve/dp/0691164002 *America's Bank: The Epic Struggle to Create the Federal Reserve* by Roger Lowenstein https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Bank-Struggle-Federal-Reserve/dp/1594205493

5 Joulu 20161h 7min

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