Who Wants to Answer a Prelim Question?

Here it is: "In what sense did the Federal Reserve ‘fail’ in the Great Depression? What would appropriate policy have been a) from the point of view of the social planner? b) given the pre-existing monetary and political constraints?"

Have at it!

Let's see, we've got Friedman & Shwartz, Temin, Romer, Eichengreen, Ohanian, Bernanke, Bordo...