Gold Versus Government: Great Eras of Growth

Paul Krugman’s co-author in the economic journals, the New York Federal Reserve economist Gauti Eggertsson, has made a claim about economic growth that is enjoying received-truth status among historians. Here it is, from a 2008 issue of the American Economic Review: “1933–1937 registered the strongest output growth (39 percent) of any four-year period in US history outside of wartime.”