(This post completes my three-part discussion of the "regime uncertainty" hypothesis, according to which the New Deal hampered recovery by causing businessmen to fear policy changes that might render their investments unprofitable. Links to the previous posts about regime uncertainty, and to the other posts of my…
(This post continues my discussion of the "regime uncertainty" hypothesis, according to which the New Deal hampered recovery by causing businessmen to fear policy changes that might render their investments unprofitable.) Insull's Monstrosity The 1935 Revenue Act wasn't the only measure that had businessmen and investors…
"This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. …[T]he only thing we have to fear is fear itself." —FDR, in his first inaugural address. "There is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain."—Thomas Hobbes, on the state of…
In assessing the New Deal's contribution to economic recovery, I've naturally tended to draw on fairly recent research. That keeps me from being accused of being out of date. But it makes me vulnerable to the charge of overlooking the testimony of experts who studied the New…
"Without Roosevelt’s intervention, the economic recovery that lasted from 1933 to 1937 would have been weaker and shorter—-not unlike our own recovery after the Great Recession." (David Weiman, "Imagining a World without the New Deal," The Washington Post, August 12th, 2011.) *** In the previous installment to…