Freedom of debt: the lessons of government finance before the Civil War -- A thousand dollar breakfast: the limits of war financing by elites -- Patriotism and profit: Jay Cooke and the democratization of debt -- The sale of American stocks constitutes the chief business at the Bourse: foreign...

This paper reconsiders the role of macroeconomic shocks and policies in determining the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery in the US. The Great Recession was mainly caused by a large demand shock and by the ZLB on the interest rate policy. In contrast with previous findings, the...