Did Hayek and Robbins Deepen the Great Depression?

Lawrence White ()

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 2008, vol. 40, issue 4, 751-768

Abstract: Contrary to some accounts, the Hayek-Robbins ("Austrian") theory of the business cycle did not prescribe a monetary policy of "liquidationism" in the sense of passive indifference to sharp deflation during the early years of the Great Depression. There is no evidence that Hayek or Robbins influenced any "liquidationist" in the Hoover administration or the Federal Reserve System. Federal Reserve policy during the Great Depression was instead influenced by the real bills doctrine, which (despite some apparent similarities) was diametrically opposed in key respects to Hayek's norms for central bank policy. Copyright (c) 2008 The Ohio State University.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:mcb:jmoncb:v:40:y:2008:i:4:p:751-768

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Money, Credit and Banking is currently edited by Robert deYoung, Paul Evans, Pok-Sang Lam and Kenneth D. West

More articles in Journal of Money, Credit and Banking from Blackwell Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing () and Christopher F. Baum ().