Journal of Economic Literature
ISSN 0022-0515 (Print) | ISSN 2328-8175 (Online)
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
Journal of Economic Literature
vol. 55,
no. 4, December 2017
(pp. 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.Citation
Ohanian, Lee E. 2017. "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." Journal of Economic Literature, 55 (4): 1583–1601. DOI: 10.1257/jel.20161344Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- E32 Business Fluctuations; Cycles
- E52 Monetary Policy
- E62 Fiscal Policy
- F44 International Business Cycles
- G01 Financial Crises
- N12 Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: U.S.; Canada: 1913-
- N22 Economic History: Financial Markets and Institutions: U.S.; Canada: 1913-