I. The Conditioning Economic Context, 97.— II. Federal Deposit Insurance, 99.— III. General Nature of Federal Reserve Law Amendments, 104.— IV. Changes in the Organization of the Federal Reserve System, 107.— V. The Instruments of Credit Control, 109.— VI. The Dilemma of Credit Policy, 114.
The Review of Economics and Statistics193517(6), 105
I. The idea that the dynamics of economic life in the capitalistic social order is not of a simple and linear but rather of a complex and cyclical character is nowadays generally recognized. Science, however, has fallen far short of clarifying the nature and the types of these cyclical, wave-like movements. When in economics we speak of cycles, we generally mean seven to eleven year business cycles. But these seven to eleven year movements are obviously not the only type of economic cycles. The dynamics of economic life is in reality more complicated. In addition to the above-mentioned cycles, which we shall agree to call intermediate, the existence of still shorter waves of about three and one-half years' length has recently been shown to be probable.1