Summer Research Presentation

Marriner S. Eccles’s view

on the Great Depression

In comparison with Keynes and Samuelson’s views

Marriner Eccles 1951

John Maynard Keynes 1936

Paul Samuelson 1948

John Maynard Keynes

-  An English economist (1883-1946)

-  The Keynesian theories:

-  Excessive saving

-  Active fiscal policy

-  Wage and spending

-  “Multiplier effect” and interest rate

Paul Samuelson -  An American economist

(1915-2009)

-  The first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

-  “foremost academic economist of the 20th century” – NY Times

Marriner Eccles

(1890 – 1977)

“ … a business, like an individual, could remain free only if it kept out of debt, and that the West itself could remain free only if it kept

out of debt to the East.”

David Eccles (1849 – 1912)

The Roaring Twenties •  1920-1929

The Great Crash •  1929

Eccles stopped a bank run •  1931

Franklin Roosevelt was elected as the

President •  1933

Eccles was appointed as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve

•  1934

Eccles was reappointed as Chair

of the Federal Reserve

•  1936, 1940, 1944

Keynes published “The General Theory

of Employment, Interest and Money”

•  1936

Samuelson published

“Economics: An Introductory

Analysis”

•  1948

Eccles resigned from the Board of

Federal Reserve and wrote “Beckoning

Frontiers”

•  1951

The Great Depression

-  What most people thought >< What Eccles’s idea

-  Excessive saving can be detrimental during a recession

- The Role of Government -

The Great Depression

“… The government, however, can spend money,

because the government, unlike the bankers, has

the power to create money and does not have to

depend on the profit motive. The only escape from

a depression must be by increased spending. We

must depend upon the government to save what

we have of a price, profit and credit system.”

Eccles’s famous policies

  The FHA Act

  Private funds

  Government protection needed

  The Banking Act of 1935

  Centralize power over open-market

  Control over the money supply

Eccles’s policies

Samuelson’s textbook

Keynesian’s general theories