Federal spending and fiscal policy
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course Code
Due Date
The Great Depression and resultant New Deal Policies
The Great Depression marked the demise of the free market and the slow start of government-controlled markets. The labor, financial and stock markets would essentially be the subject of control of the state. Whereas the immediate objective was to bring sanity, stability and predictability of prices through regulation, the long-term product of these changes has been the concentration of power and wealth amongst those in control of the markets enabled by actors in the regulatory authorities.
(Stockman, 2013) observes that President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) introduced policies that primarily would not be defined as comprising the New Deal as they were quick to die as they were quick to come. Initially, Stockman (2013) argues the New Deal involved policies which at best could not even address the core problems of the Great Depression, being that America was producing more than it was selling and that the foreign buyers were bleeding more than they could repay due to among other things the costs of the war. Thus the New Deal policies of direct payments to American industries and farmers ballooned the problem as American industries continued to produce more than they were selling (Stockman, 2013).
The initial response consisted of direct economic measures to cushion the millions of unemployed American workers (Fishback, 2017). This meant that the federal government entered into massive public works and infrastructural development, which provided temporary jobs for the unemployed (Fishback & Wallis, 2012). Simultaneously, the government created State corporations for hurting industries that were used to advance loans to private businesses, thus making the much-needed capital to revive failing industries. This included the Reconstruction Finance Corporation for the small banks and railroads (Fishback, 2017). Some actions and policies were regulatory and had minor expenditure levels compared to the programs mentioned above involving public works and direct deposits or funding to farmers.
Therefore, whereas Stockman (2013) posits that the New Deal was an incoherent program, objective scholars perceive Roosevelt’s policies as not having a single economic plan or the programs having any related objectives other than to prevent the continuing suffering of the American worker (Fishback & Wallis, 2012). Therefore, the programs under Roosevelt involved two principal classifications, which can be interpreted as the New Deal. The government emphasized expenditure programs, thus providing massive funding for existing programs, including public works and support for the ailing farmers (Fishback & Wallis, 2012). Secondly, FDR created the regulatory agenda, which is then seen as the conceptual New Deal, which sought to enhance control and regulation over the financial markets and the banking industry (Fishback & Wallis, 2012).
These programs were viewed as a whole lack coherence for economists interested in the fiscal policy theory, but FDR staff and advisors, the programs were primarily responsive to the immediate circumstances. Stockman’s analysis seems to be pegged on the idea that Roosevelt’s response had no theoretical background (Stockman, 2013). It is evident in the successful short lifespan of most of his expenditure programs which eventually was unsustainable (Stockman, 2013). Stockman (2013) seemingly views any financial decision that fails to adhere to theoretical findings and eventually causes unnecessary federal budget deficits. He argues that the necessary response was to address the world trade problems that had been the root of the Great Depression (Stockman, 2013). However, Roosevelt supporters posit that since Roosevelt’s response or fiscal policy measures were not part of a single economic recovery plan, some of the reactions were destined to be short-lived (Fishback P., 2017).
Further, scholars recognize that of the many short-lived programs of the New Deal, the Tennessee Valley Authority’s electric power business had one the best impact on the economy (Kaufman, 2012). The Authority, whose initial role was to build dams and flood control mechanisms along the Tennessee River, used the federal government’s grants to expand to electricity production projects (Fishback & Wallis, 2012). The project would employ thousands of people and have a long-lasting economic benefit.
Another critical New Deal policy was the housing program policies. Indeed, this program revolutionalized the housing economy and is essential today as then, given that it was the final act that led to the 2008 financial crisis. Under the New Deal, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation and the Federal Housing Administration helped implement the housing program (Fishback P., 2017). They essentially supplemented the private sector real estate through institutionalized protection by creating standard appraisal procedures for all Americans regardless of the residency area (Fishback & Wallis, 2012). The Federal Housing Administration gave lenders insurance that allowed them to offer mortgages even in less productive areas. This allowed the lenders to provide loans for buying houses and money for construction, and eventually, the numbers forty years later showed that at least two-thirds of Americans did not live in apartments or rentals (Fishback & Wallis, 2012). The bottom line here seems to be that the federal government assumed local and state functions for most industries, thus giving security to financial institutions just as it had done with the banking deposit insurance.
Yet, this noble idea of the New Deal came to be the cause of the 2008 financial crisis. This demonstrates that the solution, though it has been beneficial to the country’s economy, the federal influence and control would be the ultimate cause of another crash. As Stockman (2013) observes, the problem is that the Federal Reserve kept the interest rates low following the Keynesian theory of money while ignoring the signs of a non-productive economy. The financiers would then use the New Deal policy to give lenders insurance to repay their losses after the 2008 financial crisis at taxpayers’ expense. In other words, the failure of the federal government to assert fiscal discipline to lenders meant that the lenders took risky ventures fully aware that the state would always rescue them despite their fiscal indiscipline (Marović, Njegomir, & Maksimović, 2010). Thus despite the benefit of the New Deal housing policy to American households, the cost to the federal government of insuring lenders and financial institutions would ultimately cause a significant toll on the federal coffers, which would then be translated to the ordinary American person through taxes (Mishkin & White, 2014). Eventually, it suffices that the federal government should not have sustained the housing policy measures throughout the period after the economy rebounded from the Depression without significant changes to the rules. The New Deal housing policy is reflective of the biblical model of statesmanship. The initial response demonstrates a government keen on ensuring that most Americans had access to affordable housing and quality standards of living. However, the eventual undermining of the gold standard meant that the Federal Reserve amassed immense power but did not use the control with integrity to regulate the market and by keeping the interest rates low even when the interest rates ought to have been rising to curb inflation, it eventually created an irreversible crisis.
In extrapolating Roosevelt’s methods, the current Biden administration and the Trump administration have twice acted like Roosevelt’s immediate plan in the so-called stimulus packages (Polychroniou, 2021). Ignoring the specifics of how each government has handled the stimulus packages, the idea is essentially to cushion American workers during economic hardships or recession by either funding small businesses with loans to keep employees or through the new model of direct check deposits to jobless Americans. Most importantly, these stimulus packages are never meant to be a long-term solution to the economic problem at hand. Instead, they are used to alleviate the suffering of middle and low-income households. Therefore, Stockman’s position that better fiscal policy measures ought to be taken to avert the Great Depression demonstrates the detachment from the realities of the economy and the society (Stockman, 2013). Moreover, the assessment fails to recognize the political needs of any administration, which it must live up to if it intends to be a popular administration.
The New in the New Deal
As introduced earlier, the most significant changes happened in the financial sector and social services. FDR introduced a raft of measures to restore sanity to the financial industry and regulate the market. The enactment of the Social Securities Act in 1935 further solidified the response necessary to ensure the American people from severe shocks of future recessions and financial crises.
The Social Securities Act
The most significant component of the act was to ensure the unemployed through a national program. It is important to note that a national program means a partnership between the federal, state and local governments (Fishback P., 2017). The federal government would collect 3% tax from all salaried employees countrywide and would pool 90% of the collected taxes into a reserve account for each State (Fishback P., 2017). The States would, therefore, withdraw and remit monthly pays to unemployed people within their jurisdiction. Statistics show that the total benefits dispatched to unemployed people from 1938 amounted to 0.36% of the 1929 Gross Domestic Product peak, which stood at 865 billion US dollars (Stockman, 2013). To date, the unemployment benefits have had the most significant impact on people’s lives as it guarantees stability even in a financial crisis or recession (Kennedy, 2009). The coronavirus pandemic stimulus packages have used the unemployment statistics to make remittances and determine the number of benefits going to unemployed people.
The act further introduced provisions for the Old Age and Survivors Insurance. The program initially borrowed from the Civil War veterans scheme, which gave pensions to old veterans (Kennedy, 2009). The program under the act further enlarged this policy and required employers and employees to contribute to a pension fund which would then be payable to the worker upon retirement as monthly benefits. The results were swift as in the last 100 years, the retirement benefits payable to retirees run up to 40% of the average American worker’s monthly pay (Kennedy, 2009). Indeed these policies resemble that of a biblical statesmanship economic model as the government plays a critical role of service to the people as a mechanism to aid in economic recovery.
Financial regulations
The epitome of the New Deal was the adoption of a raft of federal regulatory measures, some taken up from roles previously held by the States and local authorities and others entirely new. In the banking sector, the Banking Act of 1933 prevented investment banks from being used as securities for commercial loans in commercial banks (Kennedy, 2009). Further, as many banks at the State level kept failing, FDR introduced the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which would ensure customers’ deposits up to a certain amount (Fishback P., 2017). The control of the insurable warranty was to be determined from time to time by the FDIC. The Federal Savings and Loans Insurance Corporation would also insure savings and loans issued up to a specific limit. The outcome has been a general argument that the FDIC has enhanced stability in the banking sector, although the 2008 crisis in a limited way debunks the idea.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was also created to monitor the trading of stocks, set regulations for financial reporting of publicly traded stocks, investigate insider trading and set market trading rules (Fishback P. V., 2016). The SEC has successfully prevented failing companies from publicly trading stocks, but it has done little to prevent further embodiment of the stock market amongst few elite brokers (Fishback P. V., 2016). Moreover, the role of Wall Street in the 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing detachment of the New York Stock Exchange trading floor from Main Street is reason enough to demonstrate the subversion of the original intentions of the SEC and the financial regulatory authorities.
Despite the significant impact of Roosevelt’s New Deal policy measures, scholars posit that as the federal spending doubled from Hoover’s administration, the pursuit of a balanced budget led to an increase in taxes and therefore, the budget deficit remained relatively low hence the real impact of the New Deal measures cannot be assessed but imagined (Fishback P., 2017). Moreover, the aggregate methods used to measure the impact of the New Deal policies could be accused of endogeneity bias given that the United States economy is very diverse amongst its constituent States (Fishback P., 2017). Ultimately it suffices, as Stockman (2013) argues, that the Roosevelt administration’s New Deal policies were only a short-term solution to the causes of the Great Depression. The intended long-term solutions served to shift the problem from recurring naturally by the market to being induced by the federal government itself by abolishing the gold standard and the Federal Reserve’s manipulation of interest rates. Despite Roosevelt seemingly practicing the biblical model of statesmanship that puts the government as a regulator of the financial market (Zenou, 2020), the economy and tax collector, the subsequent Nixon administration used the vulnerabilities of the Roosevelt long term solutions to manipulate federal power to the disadvantage of the American people.
Eisenhower and the balanced budget
President Eisenhower is deemed an intriguing character amongst economists and political business scholars. At all material times, Eisenhower seemed intent on avoiding expansionary policies and retaining conservative fiscal policy and federal spending (May 1990). In analyzing his economic policies of a balanced budget, it is essential to look into his military and defense spending role, especially in a post-war America and at the onset of the Cold War with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Indeed a quick review of academic resources shows that studies on Eisenhower revolved mostly on his desire to maintain a balanced budget and to cut military spending.
At the core of President Eisenhower’s balanced budget desires was the USSR problem, which had been a pressing problem given the much-feared Soviet defense capabilities (McDonnell, 2019). Eisenhower knew that this was not a political mantra for the Western civilization and an opportunity to attain his ambitions of reserved federal spending (Penner, 2014). His predecessor Harry Truman had reduced the challenge of its allies’ national security needs, and therefore, this allowed Eisenhower to apply the shortest means in attaining military capacity at a minimal cost, thus aiding to achieve a balanced budget (McDonnell, 2019). As a result, President Eisenhower oversaw the most significant nuclear weapons expansion of all times in US military history. The logic being that a pre-emptive strike with nuclear weapons would put to rest an expensive and long war while the nuclear weapons build-up would be cheap hence translating to a balanced budget (Kulacki, 2020). The war years comprised colossal budget deficits due to intense military spending and since Dwight Eisenhower had been an army general, it is logical to see why he held such a strong position on military spending.
Yet this form or style of leadership that avoids huge budget deficit reflects a good biblical statesmanship model. The Keynesian theory of budgetary deficit suggests that economies perform better when the government increases the money supply in the economy as it boosts consumer spending and has been debunked before. The borrow-and-spending culture that was the hallmark of President Ronald Reagan’s administration and subsequent governments to date has never resulted in production growth on Main Street (Stockman, 2013). If anything, the economy has been stagnant and inflation has increased by huge margins (Stockman, 2013). Therefore, Eisenhower’s model and ambitious budget spending goals would represent a biblical model’s unique view.
However, some scholars perceive Eisenhower’s era as a golden age where federal budgeting was made much more straightforward given that the primary budget issues today were not a priority then hence the federal government did not have significant expenses (Penner, 2014). Penner (2014) argues that of the 11 presidents (which at this moment would translate to 12 presidents given Trump’s Presidency has passed), only Eisenhower and Bill Clinton had the minuscule budget deficit of 0.4% and 0.7%, respectively. Unlike Eisenhower, President Clinton came at a time of a technology boom in the Silicon Valley, occasioning significant revenue streams to cover budget needs (Stockman, 2013). Analyzing the Eisenhower budget needs is critical to distinguish or compare with current circumstances and decipher whether it is possible to have a less budgetary deficit.
Eisenhower managed to hit budget surplus for four years of his eight years in the Presidency mainly due to the post-Korean war recession and the 1957 recession (May 1990). At the start of his administration, the military spending averaged 14% of the GDP, but at the time of his exit in 1960, military expenditure had shrunk to 9.3% of the GDP (Penner 2014). Further, Eisenhower managed to reduce federal spending from 20.4% of the GDP to 18.4% of the GDP, a feat that has never been achieved since then (Stockman, 2013). He
The critical sticking issues for Eisenhower were to reduce military spending, maintain a balanced budget, introduce and sustain tax cuts (McDonnell, 2019). Thus to ensure that his anti-defense spending did not undermine the national security needs of the country, he embarked on an expansive nuclear mission to use the development of nuclear warheads as means to protect the interests of the United States and those of its NATO allies in Europe (McDonnell, 2019). As the goal was to reduce military spending, Eisenhower embarked on a mission to enhance division of labor among NATO allies by giving them access and specific control over nuclear weapons, thus enabling the US to sustain military capabilities and those of its allies using nuclear weapons and at an inexpensive cost for an indefinite period (Penner, 2014). This sense of cooperation became integral to his administration from the onset and allowed him to reduce military personnel and labor-intensive military activities.
The recessions of 1955 and 1958 became a problem for Eisenhower’s ambition. There was growing support in Washington to increase the budget deficit based on the Keynesian theory of money, which the supporters believed or at least argued could counter the Soviet threat and overpower its economic system (Stockman, 2013). However, Eisenhower was adamant, instead of arguing that budget deficits would make the dollar less valuable. Despite all this, President Eisenhower was still a major supporter of the Social Services Act and its New Deal policies; hence he sought to achieve a balanced budget without undermining social services (Penner, 2014). Eisenhower’s economic policy reflects a biblical statesmanship model that eliminates budget deficits and prevents the occurrence of a borrow-and-spend federal budgetary system.
Scholars posit that the circumstances during Eisenhower’s administration are difficult to emulate in the 21st century. For instance, Eisenhower came at a time when discretionary spending was reigning supreme hence capable to dictate the federal budgeting single-handedly, yet in modern America, the rise of entitlement spending would prevent any president from cutting the federal budget discretionary (Stockman, 2013). As of 2012, the mandatory federal expenditure stood at 60% of the total budget contrasted to the 1960 compulsory budget items, which stood at one-third of the budget while the discretionary funding was at two-third of the budget (Stockman, 2013). Therefore, presidents nowadays have less discretion and flexibility to determine federal spending as most items are mandatory to spend on. Entitlement spending, in this case, involves social services and medical insurance introduces under the Affordable Care Act (Penner, 2014). Despite the Affordable Care Act setting the targets for the cost of medical care growth, there is little control that the President can apply on the cost through the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) to limit the ballooning of federal spending (Penner, 2014).
Moreover, going by the biblical model of statesmanship, which though highly politicized, would mean less budget deficit, it is challenging to achieve less budget deficit or a balanced budget without undermining critical social services and medical services provided under annual federal appropriations. The duty of the federal government should not be to dictate economic growth but to regulate it. Therefore, the current administration must attain ambitious goals of achieving less budget deficit without undermining critical social services and medical insurance. It is, therefore, difficult but not impossible to achieve a balanced budget as Eisenhower did but still, the circumstances today, especially during a pandemic, require a Roosevelt-style of administration. President Biden has an opportunity to return the country to better days of the budget surplus or a balanced budget after the pandemic is gone; he can do so by applying Roosevelt’s tactics of federal spending on public goods to stimulate consumer purchasing power while using taxes for the wealthy. If he succeeds in aiding a good recovery, he may manage to come close to a less budget deficit though attaining a balanced budget is problematic given that the current national debt is at 108% of the GDP.
The final abolishment of the Gold Standard
The abolishment of the Gold standard marked the end of sound money. Indeed as Stockman (2013) argues at the end of Eisenhower’s Presidency, the federal government and the federal reserve had a sincere dedication to upholding sound money and the Republican party, which Nixon was part of as the Vice President to Eisenhower, was not leaning to the Keynesian theory of money. Yet eleven years later, Richard Nixon would actively erase the gains made by his boss, Eisenhower, by abolishing the Gold Standard on August 15, 1971. This radical shift in the fiscal policy principles of the Republican Party from Eisenhower to Nixon is vital to analyze through a study on the cause and impact of abolishing the gold standard.
During the standard gold era, the quantity of money would be determined by the monetary gold stock. The public’s gold-holding preferences would evaluate this against the currency, the domestic production of gold, and losses of gold made in the international market (Wood, 1981). To prevent the proliferation of paper money, a maximum limit on the gold available for disaggregation and the gold held by the banks, thus ensuring that the inflation levels were manageable and limited (Selgin, 2013). As such, every actor in the economy, including the government, would be held to similar standards as the private sector, thus ensuring that there was sound money circulation to the economy (Romer, 2006).
Reforms on the gold standard had substantially occurred since FDR ordered a national bank holiday in 1933 and proceeded to suspend the outward flow of gold then requested all privately held gold to be exchanged with the dollar while commercial banks were required to transfer their gold reserves to the central bank in exchange with the dollar (Romer, 2006). Subsequently, upon establishing the Bretton Woods institutes, all countries were required to peg their currencies on the dollar and not gold (Zoeller, 2019). The problem had always been that some countries, mainly Asian countries, were manipulating their currencies, thus increasing their paper currencies against gold which made prices lower than in western countries (Stockman, 2013). This ensured that domestic consumers would import goods cheaply than in buying similar products in their domestic countries. Effectively local industries were suffering from increasing production capacity fueled by federal spending, especially during post-war recessions, yet the demand did not meet the supply level (Stockman, 2013). Thus, requiring all currencies to be pegged against the dollar exposed the world to manipulating the dollar as US authorities could devalue the dollar, thus occasioning losses in gold value to other world authorities (Bordo, 2017). This mistrust eventually would crystallize as the US payment deficits overrun the total foreign-held dollar triggering concerns about whether the dollar could be convertible to gold stocks (Zoeller, 2019). As a result of the mistrusts, foreign dollar holders started claiming their gold stock value against the held dollar leading to near depletion of gold stocks held by the US in 1971, thus triggering the abandonment of the gold standard (Selgin, 2013).
This sequence of events demonstrates the inability of the federal reserve to assert control over its domestic fiscal policy. The US authorities used the privilege of manipulating the dollar to cater for costs incurred in running its military. Moreover, the bigger problem is that whereas the Federal Reserve may manage to control the domestic affairs of currency valuation and fiscal policy, the global trade competition would seriously jeopardize and undermine domestic production on the Main Street, resulting in increasing demand for imports than locally made products.
The closing of the ‘gold window’ it appears was therefore not an objective for the Republicans or President Nixon but an uncontrolled event. This would eventually force the federal government to take drastic action to cushion the economy from the shocks of the closing of the gold window (Zoeller, 2019). Other scholars posit and factually so that the United States had been interested in the Bretton Woods institutions’ reform by shifting the par value of the dollar to gold (Bordo, 2017). However, since many poorer countries considered this a risk to their economies, given that they had little liquid dollar reserves to influence the price of gold, the ability of the US to devalue the dollar and meet its domestic needs became limited and heavily opposed (Zoeller, 2019). As such, the decision to close the gold window was a reflex action, albeit a calculated move to prevent the US economy from suffering from a shortage of capital inflows. Therefore, the Nixon administration took steps that were simply irreversible but had the US managed to convince the international community to modify the role of the International Monetary Fund, the international monetary policy would not have changed, and it would have sustained exchange rates and price stability.
As a result of the shortage of gold stocks in America, the country was headed towards a crisis and shortage of money supply. Thus the action to close the gold window provided the only real solution to an impending financial instability. Building on this opportunity, the Nixon administration created a chance to increase the supply of money, which is an ideal situation as Keynesian theorists had suggested, would stimulate consumer spending, lower prices domestically and restoring the US competitiveness in the global market (Miles, 2015).
The Keynesian theory of money has since been debunked and as Stockman (2013) observes, the false narrative of federal spending has been the cause of the eternal cycle of financial crises. However, fiat money and Keynesian theory proponents suggest that all monetary systems, including the bimetallic money system, the classical gold standard money system and the Bretton Woods gold standard money system, have never succeeded in ensuring price level co-movement (Miles, 2015). Indeed it appears that in a global trade system, every country is on its own. However, those scholars recognize that at least before the Bretton Woods institutes, prices and exchange rates were ensured even though no real production growth was realized (Miles, 2015).
The final undermining of the gold standard was reflex action arising from the abuse of power by US authorities when the expectation was that the US would offer financial guidance out of the post-War mess. This demonstrates that the US federal government, specifically the executive branch, could not establish a biblical model of statesmanship as experts applied greed and desire for the enrichment and used the privilege to instill mistrust of the American authorities.
As Stockman (2013) observes, the failure to address the problem of the world trade at the opportune moment (being the Great Depression-era) ushered irreversible consequences that precipitated until it was no longer tenable to have the gold standard. Given that the foreign-held dollar was more than the dollar quantity in the federal reserve, the Nixon administration had to increase the federal spending and, therefore, budget deficit to raise the money supply in the economy. All through the years, the inadequate actions of the government save for the austerity measures of President Eisenhower created an irreversible scenario of increasing budget deficit and increasing federal spending with little growth.
References
Bordo, M. D. (2017, February). The Operation and Demise of the Bretton Woods System; 1958 to 1971. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 23189.
Fishback, P. (2017). How Successful Was the New Deal? The Microeconomic Impact of New Deal Spending and Lending Policies in the 1930s. Journal of Economic Literature, 55(4), 1435-1485.
Fishback, P. V. (2016). New Deal. In J. G., Banking Crises (pp. 241-250). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fishback, P. V., & Wallis, J. J. (2012). What was new about the New Deal? NBER Working Paper Series, 18271, pp. 1-65.
Fishback, P. V., Horrace, W. C., & Kantor, S. (2006). The impact of New Deal expenditures on mobility during the Great Depression. Economics – Faculty Scholarship, 16, 1-28.
Kaufman, B. E. (2012). Wage Theory, New Deal Labor Policy, and the Great Depression: Were Government and Unions to Blame? ILR Review, 65(3), 501-532.
Kennedy, D. M. (2009). What the New Deal Did. Political Science Quarterly, 124(2), 251-268.
Kulacki, G. (2020). Nuclear Weapons in the Taiwan Strait Part I. Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 3(2), 310-341.
Marović, B., Njegomir, V., & Maksimović, R. (2010). The Implications of the Financial Crisis to the Insurance Industry – Global and Regional Perspective. Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, 23(2), 127-141.
May, A. M. (1990, June). President Eisenhower, Economic Policy, and the 1960 Presidential Election. College of Business Faculty Publications, 24, pp. 417-427.
McDonnell, T. P. (2019, May 14). Shoot First or Fail Deadly: Transforming US Nuclear Posture Under Eisenhower. MIT Politcal Science Research Paper.
Miles, W. (2015). Did the Classical Gold Standard Lead to Greater Price Level Convergence? A New Approach. Open Economies Review, 26, 351-377.
Mishkin, F. S., & White, E. N. (2014, December). Unprecedented actions: the federal reserve’s response to the global financial crisis in historical perspective. National Bureaue of Economic Research, pp. 1-41.
Penner, R. G. (2014). When Budgeting Was Easier: Eisenhower and the 1960 Budget. Public Budgeting and Finance, 34(4), 24-37.
Polychroniou, C. J. (2021, February 1). Biden’s $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Is a Vital Beginning for a New New Deal. Retrieved April 5, 2021, from Global Policy: https://www.globalpolicyjournal.com/blog/01/02/2021/bidens-19-trillion-stimulus-vital-beginning-new-new-deal
ROMER, C.-T. H. (2006). Was the Federal Reserve Constrained by the Gold Standard During the Great Depression? Evidence from the 1932 Open Makret Purchase Program. The Journal of Economic History, 66(1), 140-176.
Selgin, G. (2013, June 20). The Rise and Fall of the Gold Standard in the United States. Policy Analysis, 720.
Stockman, D. (2013). The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America. New York: Public Affairs.
Wood, J. H. (1981). The demise of the gold standard. Economic Perspectives, 5(4-6).
Zenou, T. (2020). American Messiahs: The Narrative Strategies of FDR and Reagan, 1933 and 1981. European Journal of American Studies, 15(2).
Zoeller, C. (2019). Closing the Gold Window: The End of Bretton Woods as a Contingency Plan. Politics & Society, 47(1), 3-22.
