The Federal Reserve's Role in the Great Contraction and the Subprime Crisis (Report)
By The Cato Journal
- Release Date: 2008-03-22
- Genre: Politics & Current Events
Description
Milton Friedman liked to recall that his experience with the Great Depression as a young man living in New York had a major effect on his career decision to study economics. So, we can count at least one good thing that came out of that tragic, unnecessary experience. I had about the same reaction to the Depression as Milton Friedman, as did many others who were born early enough to witness the prosperity of the 1920s and experience the inexplicable poverty of the 1930s. Several of my fellow students and I, who were lucky enough to have studied under Friedman at the University of Chicago, subsequently concentrated our professional research on monetary economics to find out just what made the monetary system tick, and especially what circumstances made it go awry. The 1929 experience was the worst, but not the only one.
