The business cycle theory of Friedrich A. Hayek offers an explanation for the onset of the Great Depression that is more complete than those of his contemporaries, including Gustav Cassel. Hayek sought to explain why the boom of the 1920s ended in the bust of 1929. In the 1930s, Hayek's theory...

We revisit the origins of the Great Depression by contrasting the accounts of two contemporary economists, Friedrich A. Hayek and Gustav Cassel. Their distinct theories highlight important, but often unacknowledged, differences between the international depression and the Great Depression in the...

Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) decisions rely on economic forecasts from the Federal Reserve Board (FRB) staff. This paper analyzes the forecasts of GDP growth, inflation, and unemployment by the FRB staff and the FOMC from 2009 through 2016. Forecasts for the current year are positively...