The Causes of Boom and Bust

America’s Great Depression, by Murray N. Rothbard. Van Nostrand, $8.95 It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, whatever the economy itself may have done, business-cycle theory has never recovered from the effects of the depression of the 1930s. The size and duration of the distortions and misery attending that upheaval were such as to produce a general and quite understandable resolve to prevent a recurrence at whatever cost.

That cost, however, has been huge—in addition to the explicit costs (expressible directly or ultimately in pecuniary terms and therefore well known) of programs and palliatives, there have been subtler costs whose increasing burden may prove even heavier than the more spectacular out-of-pocket costs.

LS

About the Author

Louis M. Spadaro

Featured Tags

America’s Great Depression, by Murray N. Rothbard. Van Nostrand, $8.95 It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, whatever the economy itself may have done, business-cycle theory has never recovered from the effects of the depression of the 1930s. The size and duration of the distortions and misery attending that upheaval were such as to produce a general and quite understandable resolve to prevent a recurrence at whatever cost.

That cost, however, has been huge—in addition to the explicit costs (expressible directly or ultimately in pecuniary terms and therefore well known) of programs and palliatives, there have been subtler costs whose increasing burden may prove even heavier than the more spectacular out-of-pocket costs.