The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis

Lawrence Christiano, Roberto Motto and Massimo Rostagno ()

No 318, Working Papers (Old Series) from Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Abstract: The authors evaluate the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis--that a more accommodative monetary policy could have greatly reduced the severity of the Great Depression. To do this, they first estimate a dynamic, general equilibrium model using data from the 1920s and 1930s. Although the model includes eight shocks, the story it tells about the Great Depression turns out to be a simple and familiar one. The contraction phase was primarily a consequence of a shock that induced a shift away from privately intermediated liabilities, such as demand deposits and liabilities that resemble equity, and towards currency. The slowness of the recovery from the Depression was due to a shock that increased the market power of workers. The authors identify a monetary base rule that responds only to the money demand shocks in the model.

Keywords: Depressions; Financial crises; Friedman, Milton; Schwartz, Anna Jacobson; Monetary policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (51)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis (2004)
Working Paper: The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz Hypothesis (2004)
Working Paper: The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz Hypothesis (2004)
Journal Article: The Great Depression and the Friedman-Schwartz hypothesis (2003)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedcwp:0318

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DOI: 10.26509/frbc-wp-200318

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