While many central bankers feel they are now in unchartered territory, this column argues that history may provide guidance. Going back to a time before central banks, it argues that there are long-term cycles in the evolution of monetary policy – governments have alternatively internalised and externalised money creation. The key to success is not who runs monetary policy, but how credible they are.

What started the Great Depression? This column says that the industrial decline began before monetary contraction or banking panics – the conventional culprits – took hold. It attributes the massive drop in manufacturing hours to President Hoover’s labour policies, which kept nominal and real wages high.

Should money supply play a role in monetary policy-making? The author of CEPR DP6211 reviews the pros and cons and finds that there are no compelling reasons to assign a prominent role to monetary aggregates in monetary policy-making. The goals of the ECB's two-pillar strategy - which includes a role for money - are praiseworthy; the author believes that ECB justifications for looking at monetary aggregates provide little support for this approach.