Run, do not walk, to Eric Baum's essay on the Greater Depression.
UPDATE: Dec 14: Claudia writes to point out that Eric's essay is political spin. True. But is it good economics? I don't care if people have opinions. People always have opinions. I don't want people to let their opinions infect their economics. Economics isn't subject to your opinion. As a soft science, it's mushy at the edges, and economists should admit when they're in a mushy area. E.g. for small increases in a minimum wage, you will very very few jobs destroyed (see, that's me sticking to the facts, but also inserting my opinion -- which is that no amount of job destruction is worth the gain of somebody else's higher pay). So yes, you can do spin, but you can also be accurate in your economics.
posted at: 03:41 | path: /economics | permanent link to this entry