The Great Recession in the Shadow of the Great Depression: A Review Essay on Hall of Mirrors: The Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Uses and Misuses of History, by Barry Eichengreen

Lee Ohanian

Journal of Economic Literature, 2017, vol. 55, issue 4, 1583-1601

Abstract: This essay compares the Great Depression to the Great Recession in light of Barry Eichengreen's new book Hall of Mirrors. Eichengreen discusses these two episodes from a historical, Keynesian perspective, and concludes that policies that increase aggregate demand, such as larger fiscal deficits, would have promoted a much stronger and faster recovery from the Great Recession. I review these episodes from a neoclassical approach, which provides a very different perspective on why recoveries from these episodes were so slow and incomplete. I also argue that supply-side policies, rather than demand-side policies, are more likely to restore prosperity today.

JEL-codes: E32 E52 E62 F44 G01 N12 N22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
Note: DOI: 10.1257/jel.20161344
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.20161344 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... -B_O_NoUvMAmXDbdV_yx (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:jeclit:v:55:y:2017:i:4:p:1583-1601

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Literature is currently edited by Steven Durlauf

More articles in Journal of Economic Literature from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().