The Economics of the Great Depression is a collection of 12 interviews undertaken by Randall E. Parker of East Carolina University. The volume is a follow-up to Parker's Reflections on the Great Depression (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2002), but the new interviews are with a different cast of economists and the book's focus is more on the professional literature than on personal recollections of the Depression era. Parker also includes a concise introductory essay on the state of economists' knowledge about the causes of the Depression. The essay is a useful introduction to the literature for nonspecialists, and it effectively sets the stage for the interviews by highlighting key facts and areas of contention.

The participants in the interviews are Peter Temin, Ben Bernanke, James Hamilton, Robert Lucas, Lee Ohanian, Christina Romer, Barry Eichengreen, Stephen Cecchetti, James Butkiewicz, Michael Bordo, Charles Calomiris, and Allan Meltzer. As is obvious from the list of interviewees, the focus of discussion is on macroeconomic aspects of the Great Depression. Although Parker leaves room to discuss issues that are specific to each participant's previous work, he also poses a set of similar questions to nearly all of the participants: what role did the Gold Standard play, why did policymakers behave the way they did, what ended the Depression, how helpful is the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) approach to studying the Depression, and could a downturn of such magnitude happen again? The responses are generally candid and insightful, and Parker often succeeds in getting the participants to explain where their views coincide and where they diverge from those of other scholars. This is a valuable contribution, as it can be difficult to identify and appreciate subtle differences of emphasis on the basis of published books and articles alone. Here we get assessments straight from the horses' mouths. To be sure, the book is not a substitute for reading the original literature. Rather, it allows the participants to discuss their work in relation to the rest of the literature, ranging from classics such as Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963) to recent working papers.

Space for this review does not allow characterizations of each interview, but there are two in particular that readers of this JOURNAL might find especially interesting. First, the interview with Ben Bernanke, which was done in May 2005 (just before he became Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and about 20 months before he became Chairman of the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors), is compelling in light of the recent credit market crises. Second, the interview with Lee Ohanian, a leading proponent of the DSGE modeling approach, is particularly interesting when read in combination with the other participants' assessments of the DSGE-based interpretation of the Great Depression (these assessments can be pinpointed using the index). There remains a chasm between the (more or less) consensus economic history story of the Great Depression, with its emphasis on banking and monetary factors, and the story that Ohanian and his co-authors tell, with its emphasis on productivity shocks (e.g., see Harold L. Cole and Ohanian, “Re-examining the Contributions of Money and Banking Shocks to the U.S. Great Depression.” In B. S. Bernanke and K. Rogoff (eds.), NBER Macroeconomics Annual, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000). The interviews provide observations that help survey and map the divergent points of view, but whether one can get there from here, or vice versa, remains to be seen.

I noted above that the interviews focus on the macroeconomics of the Depression. This is more than enough material for a single volume to cover. Nonetheless, readers should keep in mind that a great deal of recent research, which is outside the scope of this volume, approaches the study of the Depression from microeconomic, or at least disaggregated, perspectives. Price Fishback's work with various co-authors stands out in this regard (e.g., Fishback, Shawn Kantor, and John Wallis, “Can the New Deal's Three R's Be Rehabilitated? A Program-by-Program, County-by-County Analysis.” Explorations in Economic History 40 [July 2003]: 278–307), as does work by Kris Mitchener (“Bank Supervision, Regulation, and Financial Instability During the Great Depression.” This JOURNAL 65, 1 [March 2005]: 152–85), William Sundstrom (“Last Hired, First Fired? Unemployment and Urban Black Workers During the Great Depression.” This JOURNAL 52, 2 [June 1992]: 415–29), and T. Aldrich Finegan and Robert Margo (“Work Relief and Labor Force Participation of Married Women in 1940.” This JOURNAL 54, 1 [March 1994]: 64–84).

In sum, The Economics of the Great Depression is a work of synthesis in which the interview participants, guided and prodded by Parker, shed light (or cast doubt) on one another's views and on those of earlier scholars. As such, its intellectual merits derive primarily from the participants' ability to look forward, backward, and across the Great Depression literature with an eye for evidence and argument that few nonspecialists can match. In this sense, Parker deserves credit for getting the participants to tell us what they see as the salient issues, and this could only be accomplished because Parker himself has a strong grasp of the literature. I recommend the book to anyone with interest in the Great Depression, or in economists' ongoing efforts to come to grips with it.