TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bordo,Michael D.
AU  - Rockoff,Hugh
TI  - Not Just the Great Contraction: Friedman and Schwartz’s A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 18828
PY  - 2013
Y2  - February 2013
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18828
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w18828.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Michael D. Bordo
Department of Economics
Rutgers University
New Jersey Hall
75 Hamilton Street
New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Tel: 732/822-7152
Fax: 732/932-7416
E-Mail: bordo@econ.rutgers.edu

Hugh Rockoff
Department of Economics
75 Hamilton Street
Rutgers University
College Avenue Campus
New Brunswick, NJ  08901-1248
Tel: 609/897-0117
Fax: 732/932-7416
E-Mail: rockoff@fas-econ.rutgers.edu
AB  - A Monetary History of the United States 1867 to 1960 published in 1963  was  written as part of an extensive NBER research project on Money and Business Cycles started in the 1950s. The project resulted in three more books and many important articles. A Monetary History was designed to provide historical evidence for the modern quantity theory of money. The principal lessons of the modern quantity theory of the long-run neutrality of money, the transitory effects of monetary policy on real economic activity, and the importance of stable money and of monetary rules have all been absorbed in modern macro models. A Monetary  History , unlike the other books, has endured the test of time and has become a classic whose reputation has grown with age. It succeeded because it was based on narrative and not an explicit model. The narrative methodology pioneered by Friedman and Schwartz and the beautifully written story still captures the imaginations of new generations of economists.
ER  -