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EH.NET BOOK REVIEW 
 
Published by EH.NET (September 1997) 
 
David Glasner, editor,  _Business Cycles and Depressions: An Encyclopedia_. 
New York: Garland Publishing, 1997. xv + 779 pp. Index. $95.00 (cloth), 
ISBN: 0-8240-0944-4. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Robert Whaples, Department of Economics, Wake Forest 
University. [log in to unmask] 
 
     "The motion of the economy, unlike that of heavenly bodies, conforms 
     to no immutable mathematical laws and follows no repetitive patterns 
     (p. 66)" 
 
David Glasner (economist at the Bureau of Economics, U.S. Federal Trade 
Commission) has assembled a stellar cast who have written an exceptionally 
useful reference book. _Business Cycles and Depressions: An Encyclopedia_ 
includes 327 original articles on every major aspect of business cycles, 
fluctuations, financial crises, recessions, and depressions. The articles, 
which range from macroeconomic theory to econometrics to the historical 
record, are generally up-to-date, clear and to the point. Most entries will 
be accessible to students, but are informative enough to benefit almost any 
professional, as well. Each includes a bibliography. A seven-page appendix 
presents international data detailing business cycle turning points and 
durations. Perhaps the highlight of the volume is a ten-page entry, 
"Business Cycles" by Victor Zarnowitz, which surveys the entire field of 
business cycle research and is quoted above. 
 
EH.NET subscribers will find this work especially helpful. The encyclopedia 
includes biographies of dozens of economists. (These entries focus almost 
entirely on the individual's contributions to the understanding of business 
cycles. The biography of W.W. Rostow, for example, only briefly mentions 
his work in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and says little about 
his writings on economic growth.) 
 
The subjects of these biographies include Moses Abramovitz, Maurice Allais, 
Luigi Amoroso, James Angell, Walter Bagehot, Otto Bauer, Eduard Bernstein, 
Eugen Bohm-Bawerk, Arthur Burns, Richard Cantillon, Carl Cassel, John 
Commons, Charles Coquelin, James Duesenberry, Otto Eckstein, Friedrich 
Engels, Irving Fisher, Milton Friedman, Ragnar Frisch, John Fullarton, 
Richard Goodwin, Tygve Haavelmo, Gottfried Haberler, Alvin Hansen, Roy 
Harrod, Friedrich Hayek, John Hicks, Rudolf Hilferding, John Hobson, David 
Hume, William Stanley Jevons, Nicholas Kaldor, Michal Kalecki, Karl 
Kautsky, John Maynard Keynes, Charles Kindleberger, Lawrence Klein, Nikolai 
Kondratieff, Tjalling Koopmans, Simon Kuznets, Oskar Lange, Frederick 
Lavington, Abba Lerner, W. Arthur Lewis, Erik Lindahl, Eric Lundberg, Rosa 
Luxembourg, Thomas Malthus, Alfred Marshall, Karl Marx, Lloyd Metzler, John 
Stuart Mill, Frederick Mills, Hyman Minsky, Ilse Mintz, Ludwig von Mises, 
Wesley Mitchell, Franco Modigliani, Gunnar Myrdal, Bertil Ohlin, Arthur 
Okun, Vilfredo Pareto, Henry Parnell, Warren Persons, A. W. Phillips, 
Arthur Pigou, David Ricardo, Lionel Robbins, Dennis Robertson, Joan 
Robinson, W.W. Rostow, Paul Samuelson, Jean Baptiste Say, Joseph 
Schumpeter, Anna Schwartz, Eugen Slutsky, Adam Smith, Arthur Smithies, 
Piero Sraffa, Paul Sweezy, Henry Thornton, Jan Tinbergen, James Tobin, 
Thomas Tooke, Robert Torrens, Mikhail Tugan-Baranovsky, Thorstein Veblen, 
Clark Warburton, J.G.K. Wicksell, Wladimir Woytinki and Victor Zarnowitz 
 
Among the entries that will be of most interest to economic historians are: 
Agriculture and Business Cycles by Randal Rucker and Daniel Sumner 
Bank Charter Act of 1844 by David Glasner 
Bank of England by David Glasner, C.A.E. Goodhart and Gary Santoni 
Bank of France by Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur 
Bank of the United States by Eugene White 
Banking Panics by Gary Gorton 
Baring Crisis (1890) by Richard Grossman 
Business Cycles in Russia, 1700-1914 by Thomas Owen 
Central Banking by Anna Schwartz 
Clearinghouses by Gary Gorton 
Crisis of 1763 and 1772-1773 by Eric Schubert 
Crisis of the 1780s by Fred Moseley 
Crisis of 1819 by Neil Skaggs 
Crisis of 1847 by David Glasner 
Crisis of 1857 by Hugh Rockoff 
Crisis of 1873 by David Glasner 
Crisis of 1907 by C.A.E. Goodhart 
Crisis of 1914 by Forest Capie and Geoffrey Wood 
Depression of 1873-1879 by Fred Moseley 
Depression of 1882-1885 by Alan Sorkin 
Depression of 1920-21 by Anthony Patrick O?Brien 
Depression of 1937-1938 by W. Gene Smiley 
Federal Deposit Insurance by James Barth and John Feid 
Federal Reserve System: 1914-1941 by David Wheelock 
Federal Reserve System, 1941-1993 by Thomas Havrilesky 
Free Banking by Philippe Nataf 
Glass-Steagall Act by Eugene White 
Gold Standard by Michael Bordo 
Gold Standard: Causes and Consequences by Earl Thompson 
Great Depression in Britain (1929-1932) by Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Wood 
Great Depression in France (1929-1938) by Pierre-Cyrille Hautcoeur 
Great Depression in the U.S. (1929-1938) by Elmus Wicker 
Great Depression of 1873-1896 by Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Wood 
Industrial Revolution (c. 1750-1850) by Clark Nardinelli 
Kondratieff Cycles by Robert Zevin 
Leading Indicators: Historical Record by Geoffrey Moore 
Long-Wave Theories by Massimo Di Matteo 
Mississippi Bubble by Larry Neal 
Napoleonic Wars by Larry Neal 
Panic of 1825 by Michael Haupert 
Panic of 1837 by Richard Timberlake 
Panic of 1893 by Richard Timberlake 
Phillips Curve by Richard Lipsey 
Political Business Cycles by K. Alec Chrystal 
Recessions after World War II by Alan Sorkin 
Recessions (Supply-Side) in the 1970s by John Tatom 
Reichsbank by Harold James 
Seasonal Fluctuations and Financial Crises by Jeffrey Miron 
Smoot-Hawley Tariff by David Glasner 
South Sea Bubble by Larry Neal 
Stock-Market Crash of 1929 by Eugene White 
Tulipmania by Peter Garber 
 
The encyclopedia is a valuable teaching tool. It is a must for any college 
library. 
 
Robert Whaples 
Department of Economics 
Wake Forest University 
 
Robert Whaples is Associate Director of EH.NET and author (with Jac 
Heckelman) of "Political Business Cycles before the Great Depression," 
Economics Letters, 51, May 1996. 
 
Copyright (c) 1997 by EH.Net and H-Net, all rights reserved. This work may 
be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to the 
author and the list. For other permission, please contact 
[log in to unmask] (Robert Whaples, Book Review Editor, EH.Net. 
Telephone: 910-758-4916. Fax: 910-758-6028.) 
 
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