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

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 E32, E52, E62, F44, G01, N12, N22)