Real business cycle models of the Great Depression

The Great Depression of the 1930s is again on the frontier of research in macroeconomics. Researchers working in the real business cycle (RBC) tradition have recently started to apply their theoretical apparatus to the event. This paper discusses the result of their work and assesses the role of history and macroeconomics in analysing the Great Depression. I argue that the breaking of the depression taboo in macroeconomics has been a desirable completion of the cliometric revolution: no historical event should be exempt from a dispassionate quantitative analysis. On the other hand, the substantive contribution of RBC models is not yet sufficient to establish a new historiography of the Great Depression.