This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, June 22nd, 2012. I'm Caleb Brown.

Anna Schwartz, along with Milton Friedman, literally wrote the book on monetary history in America,

and in doing so they helped revolutionize thinking about the causes of the Great Depression.

It is no exaggeration to say that Anna Schwartz was among the greatest economists of the 20th century.

She died this week at the age of 96. Jim Dorne, a friend and

colleague of Anna Schwartz for many years comments on her legacy. I had a couple of

brief conversations with Anna Schwartz. You knew her very well and even in the very brief time that I spoke with her she struck me as somebody who didn't have a high degree of sensitivity to what other people thought of what she was saying.

No, she was a real iron lady, really a tough woman. She had this raspy voice, very sharp mind, and she knew economic history better than just about anybody I can think

of including economic theory and monetary theory.

And of course she did the famous study with Milton Friedman.

She was an instrumental part of that study

in monetary history of the United States.

She was published in 1963. And she was not afraid to criticize top officials

including Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke if she thought they were going

the wrong way. She was a member, one of the early members of the Shadow Open

Market Committee that was founded by Carl Bruner and Elle Melzer. And the

function of that committee was basically to see what the Fed was doing

and to criticize the Fed if they were going in the direction that the members of the Shadow

Market Committee thought was wrong for the economy.

She was interested in long-term trends.

She didn't think monetary policy could

reduce the unemployment rate.

...