The Fisher Relation in the Great Depression and the Great Recession

The Fisher relation played a very different role in debates surrounding the Great Depression and the more recent Great Recession. This paper explores some of these differences, and suggests an explanation for them derived from a sketch of the idea's evolution between the two events, thus providing a brief case study of the interaction of economic ideas and economic events that is a central feature of the History of Economic Thought. -- Interest rates ; nominal vs. real ; Inflation ; deflation ; expectations ; depression ; recession ; Keynesian economics ; monetarism ; monetary policy