IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1987.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Events and Keynesian Ideas: The 1930s and the 1970s

Author

Listed:
  • Michael R. Darby
  • James R. Lothian

Abstract

Keynes' General Theory was a brilliant attempt to explain the paradox of low interest rates, ineffectual easy monetary policy, and low investment during the Great Depression. We argue that Keynes' failure to distinguish between low nominal and high real interest rates led him to misinterpret a tight and all too effective monetary policy and unnecessarily hypothesize a downward shift in investment demand. Keynesian ideas in turn profoundly influenced economic policy in the 1960s and 1970s. The resulting postwar inflation -- rather than scholarship on what actually happened in the 1930s -- appears to be the primary reason for the waning influence of the ideas derived from the General Theory.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael R. Darby & James R. Lothian, 1986. "Economic Events and Keynesian Ideas: The 1930s and the 1970s," NBER Working Papers 1987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1987
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1987.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nobay, A Robert & Johnson, Harry G, 1977. "Monetarism: A Historic-Theoretic Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 470-485, June.
    2. Allan H. Meltzer, 1963. "The Demand for Money: The Evidence from the Time Series," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 71(3), pages 219-219.
    3. Gandolfi, Arthur E, 1974. "Stability of the Demand for Money during the Great Contraction-1929-1933," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(5), pages 969-983, Sept./Oct.
    4. Wallace E. Huffman & James R. Lothian, 1984. "The Gold Standard and the Transmission of Business Cycles, 1833-1932," NBER Chapters, in: A Retrospective on the Classical Gold Standard, 1821-1931, pages 455-512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Philip Cagan, 1965. "Determinants and Effects of Changes in the Stock of Money, 1875–1960," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number caga65-1, June.
    6. Michael D. Bordo & Anna J. Schwartz, 1984. "A Retrospective on the Classical Gold Standard, 1821-1931," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bord84-1, June.
    7. Benjamin, Daniel K & Kochin, Levis A, 1979. "Searching for an Explanation of Unemployment in Interwar Britain," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(3), pages 441-478, June.
    8. Choudhri, Ehsan U & Kochin, Levis A, 1980. "The Exchange Rate and the International Transmission of Business Cycle Disturbances: Some Evidence from the Great Depression," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 12(4), pages 565-574, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diego Bastourre & Jorge Carrera & Javier Ibarlucia, 2008. "Commodity Prices in Argentina. What Does Move the Wind?," Money Affairs, CEMLA, vol. 0(1), pages 1-30, January-J.
    2. Tabellini, Guido, 1990. "Domestic politics and the international coordination of fiscal policies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3-4), pages 245-265, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bordo, Michael D. & Schwartz, Anna J., 1999. "Monetary policy regimes and economic performance: The historical record," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 149-234, Elsevier.
    2. Bordo, Michael D., 1986. "Explorations in monetary history: A survey of the literature," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 339-415, October.
    3. Richard S. Grossman & Christopher M. Meissner, 2010. "International aspects of the Great Depression and the crisis of 2007: similarities, differences, and lessons," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 26(3), pages 318-338, Autumn.
    4. Charles W. Calomiris, 1993. "Financial Factors in the Great Depression," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 61-85, Spring.
    5. Michael D. Bordo, 1989. "The Contribution of "A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960" to Monetary History," NBER Chapters, in: Money, History, and International Finance: Essays in Honor of Anna J. Schwartz, pages 15-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Douglas A. Irwin, 2010. "Did France Cause the Great Depression?," NBER Working Papers 16350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Michael D. Bordo, 2017. "An Historical Perspective on the Quest for Financial Stability and the Monetary Policy Regime," NBER Working Papers 24154, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Carmen M. Reinhart & Vincent R. Reinhart, 2009. "When the North Last Headed South: Revisiting the 1930s," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(2 (Fall)), pages 251-276.
    9. J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "The Changing Cyclical Variability of Economic Activity in the United States," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 679-734, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Ritschl, Albrecht & Straumann, Tobias, 2009. "Business cycles and economic policy, 1914-1945: a survey," Economic History Working Papers 22402, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    11. Joseph Davis & Vanguard Group; Christopher Hanes, 2004. "Primary Sector Shocks and Early American Industrialization," 2004 Meeting Papers 154, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Paula Hernandez-Verme, 2009. "International Reserves Crises, Monetary Integration and the Payments System during the International Gold Standard," Department of Economics and Finance Working Papers EC200904, Universidad de Guanajuato, Department of Economics and Finance.
    13. Green, Georgina, 2018. "Monetary policy spillovers in the first age of financial globalisation: a narrative VAR approach 1884–1913," Bank of England working papers 718, Bank of England.
    14. Rangan Gupta & Josine Uwilingiye, 2008. "Measuring The Welfare Cost Of Inflation In South Africa," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 76(1), pages 16-25, March.
    15. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1996. "Nobel Lecture: Monetary Neutrality," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(4), pages 661-682, August.
    16. Maurice Obstfeld & Alan M. Taylor, 1998. "The Great Depression as a Watershed: International Capital Mobility over the Long Run," NBER Chapters, in: The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, pages 353-402, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Bhatta, Siddha Raj, 2011. "Stability of demand for money function in Nepal: A cointegration and error correction modeling approach," MPRA Paper 41404, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Jason Lennard, 2023. "Sticky wages and the Great Depression: evidence from the United Kingdom," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 27(2), pages 196-222.
    19. Fratianni, Michele & Giri, Federico, 2017. "The tale of two great crises," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 5-31.
    20. Benati, Luca & Lucas, Robert E. & Nicolini, Juan Pablo & Weber, Warren, 2021. "International evidence on long-run money demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 43-63.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1987. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.