> "Fiscal policy, then, seems to have been an unsuccessful recovery device in the 'thirties--not because it did not work, but because it was not tried."
>
> -- E. Cary Brown
>
> The quote comes from an AER article cited by Eric Rauchway in his fine little book _The Great Depression & The New Deal_. Roosevelt ran in 1932 against federal deficits. The New Deal was pre-Keynesian. The decline in deficit spending in 1937 was a feature, not a bug.
>
> Shane
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Indeed. It was a chastened Irving Fisher who had a greater impact on policy; oh what some will do for redemption when credibility is a positional good...
http://web.econ.unito.it/prato/papers/qd57.pdf
Ian