ABSTRACT
The National Bureau's monetary research has throughout been closely connected with its studies of business cycles. Wesley Mitchell's preliminary manuscript on business cycles contained a long on the role of money and credit in the cycle. Credit conditions are affected by a much broader range of factors than those linked to the quantity of money and they require study in their own right. This is being done in the National Bureau studies of consumer credit, interest rates, and the quality of credit. The chapter considers in some ways the central issue in dispute about the role of money in business cycles, namely, whether the cyclical behavior of money is to be regarded as a major factor explaining business fluctuations or as simply a reflection of business fluctuations produced by other forces. Perhaps the most directly relevant kind of evidence emerges from an examination of the historical circumstances surrounding changes in the quantity of money.
