US monetary and fiscal policy in the 1930s – and now

Price Fishback of the University of Arizona talks to Romesh Vaitilingam about whether the current US economic situation is really comparable to the Great Depression. He argues that today’s monetary policy response is heavily and positively influenced by the failures of the past – but that today’s fiscal stimulus is far stronger than in the 1930s and out of proportion to the problem. The interview was recorded at a conference on ‘Lessons from the Great Depression for the Making of Economic Policy’ in London in April 2010.