Correction

The conclusion to Alarming errors in “Lessons” from the 1930s had a glaring error — now fixed! Perhaps it’s Freudian. It should read: More broadly, the threat to global prosperity is not the use of too much stimulus but too little. If we one day find ourselves in a more protectionist world, it won’t be […]

Recession and politics (long, tedious, wonkish and titillating)

Whether you’re from a left or right perspective, you can probably agree that policymaking played some role in the Great Depression. If you’re of a right/libertarian view you might see policymakers as having lacked the mettle to force the economy into a deflated-price equilibrium (or, more accurately, to force the factors of production (pdf) to accept new equilibria) […]

Alarming errors in “lessons” from the 1930s

Angel Gurría explained this morning that protectionism is the real and present danger facing the world economy, citing the 1930s as an object lesson. This view no doubt enjoys considerable support. It is practically a ‘stylised fact’ in our historiography of the Great Depression (was the Smoot-Hawley tariff not in your high school textbook?). It […]