George Selgin on Contextualizing the Great Depression and its Implications on Monetary Policy Today

George Selgin is a senior fellow and director emeritus at the Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives at the Cato Institute, as well as the author of the new book titled False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise of Recovery, 1933-1947. George returns to the show to discuss the complicated economic history of the Great Depression, how that history has led us to the macro-events of 2008, 2010, and 2020, how we can apply lessons from the Great Depression to macroeconomic policy to the current moment, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on May 13th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:25 - Welcoming George Selgin and False Dawn

00:03:25 - Why Another Book on the Great Depression?

00:06:37 - The New Deal’s Role in Recovery from the Great Depression

00:08:50 - Myths About the New Deal Overview of the Great Depression

00:12:30 - Measuring Unemployment

00:16:42 - The Gold Standard and the Great Depression

00:27:05 - Helpful: Suspension of the Gold Standard and the Bank Holiday

00:35:47 - Unhelpful: Reconstruction Finance Corporation

00:38:02 - Helpful: Creation of the Home Owners Loan Corporation

00:42:31 - Unhelpful: The National Recovery Administration

00:48:42 - Unhelpful: Fiscal and Monetary Policy and Ignoring Keynes

00:57:17 - Lessons for Today: Uncertainty

01:00:56 - The Lesson of Level Targeting

01:06:42 - Breaching Contracts

01:11:40 - Outro