Money aggregates and economic activity during the Great Depression and 2007-11

This working paper examines monetary aggregates as means of explaining economic activity. Comparative analysis of the Great Depression and the years 2007-11 is used to test the explanatory power of monetary aggregates in accordance with their use in monetarist explanations of the Great Depression. A conclusion from this analysis is that monetarist theory can structure monetary-aggregate data to produce useful insights about economic activity for the years 2007-11.