A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960

Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz

Princeton University Press, Sep 2, 2008 - Business & Economics - 888 pages

“Magisterial. . . . The direct and indirect influence of the Monetary History would be difficult to overstate.”—Ben S. Bernanke, Nobel Prize–winning economist and former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve

From Nobel Prize–winning economist Milton Friedman and his celebrated colleague Anna Jacobson Schwartz, one of the most important economics books of the twentieth century—the landmark work that rewrote the story of the Great Depression and the understanding of monetary policy

Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 is one of the most influential economics books of the twentieth century. A landmark achievement, it marshaled massive historical data and sharp analytics to argue that monetary policy—steady control of the money supply—matters profoundly in the management of the nation’s economy, especially in navigating serious economic fluctuations.

One of the book’s most important chapters, “The Great Contraction, 1929–33” addressed the central economic event of the twentieth century, the Great Depression. Friedman and Schwartz argued that the Federal Reserve could have stemmed the severity of the Depression, but failed to exercise its role of managing the monetary system and countering banking panics. The book served as a clarion call to the monetarist school of thought by emphasizing the importance of the money supply in the functioning of the economy—an idea that has come to shape the actions of central banks worldwide.

Contents

• 1 Introduction: 2
• 2 The Greenback Period: 15
• 3 Silver Politics and the Secular Decline in Prices 187997: 89
• 4 Gold Inflation and Banking Reform 18971914: 135
• 5 Early Years of the Federal Reserve System 191421: 189
• 6 The High Tide of the Reserve System 192129: 240
• 7 The Great Contraction 192933: 299
• 8 New Deal Changes in the Banking Structure and Monetary Standard: 420
• 9 Cyclical Changes 193341: 493
• 10 World War II Inflation September 1939August 1948: 546
• 11 Revival of Monetary Policy 194860: 592
• 12 The Postwar Rise in Velocity: 639
• 13 A Summing Up: 676
• Appendixes: 701
• Directors Comment: 809
• Indexes: 815

Popular passages

Page vii - ... their interpretation in a scientific and impartial manner. The Board of Directors is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the work of the National Bureau is carried on in strict conformity with this object. 2. The President of the National Bureau shall submit to the Board of Directors, or to its Executive Committee, for their formal adoption all specific proposals for research to be instituted.

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Page iii - Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).

Page vi - Thomas D. Flynn, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Nathaniel Goldfinger, American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations Harold G. Halcrow, American Agricultural Economics Association tic.

Page xx - ... the most reckless and treacherous of all theorists is he who professes to let facts and figures speak for themselves, who keeps in the back-ground the part he has played, perhaps unconsciously, in selecting and grouping them, and in suggesting the argument post hoc ergo propter hoc.

About the author

Milton Friedman (1912-2006) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1976. He was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and had previously taught at the University of Chicago, from 1946 to 1976. He was also a member of the research staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research from 1937 to 1981. Anna Jacobson Schwartz (1915–2012) was a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, which she joined in 1941. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During her distinguished career, she has made major contributions to the economics of business cycles, banking, monetary policy, and financial regulation.

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960; National Bureau of Economic Research Publications
• Authors: Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2008
• ISBN: 140082933X, 9781400829330
• Length: 888 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economic History