"The intellectual response to the Great Depression is often portrayed as a battle between the ideas of Friedrich Hayek and John Maynard Keynes. Yet both the Austrian and the Keynesian interpretations of the Depression were incomplete. Austrians could explain how a country might get into a...

"The Recession of 1937-38 is often cited as illustrating the dangers of withdrawing fiscal and monetary stimulus too early in a weak recovery. Yet our understanding of this severe downturn is incomplete: existing studies find that changes in fiscal policy were small in comparison to the...

Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1. The Great Depression and the Rise of Protectionism -- The Gold Standard and the Great Depression -- Moving toward Protectionism: The Smoot- Hawley Tariff -- Things Fall Apart-1931 -- Trade Policy Reaction -- The Open Economy Trilemma -- Conclusion -- Chapter 2....