O.M.W. Sprague (the Man Who "Wrote the Book" on Financial Crises) meets the Great Depression / Hugh Rockoff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rockoff, Hugh.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29416.

NBER working paper series no. w29416

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

OMW Sprague

OMW Sprague (the Man Who “Wrote the Book” on Financial Crises) meets the Great Depression

O.M.W. Sprague

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

When the Great Depression struck the United States, Oliver M.W. Sprague was America's foremost expert on financial crises. His History of Crises under the National Banking System is a frequently cited classic. Had he diagnosed a banking panic and called for an aggressive response by the Federal Reserve, it might have made a difference; but he did not. Sprague's misdiagnosis had, I argue, two causes. First, the crisis lacked the symptoms of a panic, such as high short-term interest rates in the New York money market, which Sprague had identified from his studies of previous crises. Second, Sprague's macro-economic ideas led him to conclude that an expansionary monetary policy would be of little help once a depression was underway. Sprague's main concern was that abandoning the gold standard would intensify the crisis, a concern that led him to resign his position as advisor to the U.S. Treasury to protest Roosevelt's gold policy.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2021.