Peter Temin

This work hypothesized that it was not primarily the actions of the Federal Reserve in response to the economic downturn of 1930 which turned a recession into the most far reaching slump in the modern economic period, but instead was an autonomous drop in demand.

Peter Temin (born 17 December 1937) is an economist and economic historian, currently Gray Professor Emeritus of Economics, MIT and former head of the Economics Department.

Temin graduated from Swarthmore College in 1959 before earning his Ph.D. at MIT in 1964.

Beginning in the 1960s and early 1970s he published on American economic history in the 19th century, including The Jacksonian Economy (1969) and Causal Factors in American Economic Growth in the Nineteenth Century (1975), as well as Reckoning with Slavery (1976), which was an examination of the slave economy and its effects.

His papers of the 1960s would reflect intense empirical study as part of his working method, including composition of iron and steel products, which would later be part of his analysis of industrial development.

The conclusions of his 1971 paper on Central Banks and Economic and Social Welfare programs foreshadowed what is probably his most influential and best known work: Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? (1976).

Temin is the brother of the late geneticist Howard Temin, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1975 for the discovery of reverse transcriptase.

He is Jewish.

His 1987 empirical survey of AT&T, entitled The Fall of the Bell System has affected how new entrepreneurial businesses are viewed.

He would later revisit this thesis in his 1989 work Lessons from the Great Depression, as well as publish several papers building on his conclusions.

He joined, in some way, the conclusions of Keynes and Friedman: the Great Depression started with troubles in the 'real economy' later expanded to the financial world via speculation and money destruction (also see the analysis of Rondo Cameron about 'wildcat banking').

He continued his study of 19th century industrialization with Engines of Enterprise.

Two of Temin's most cited conclusions in this area are on the relationship of labor scarcity to economic development, and the role of general equilibrium models in studying economic history.

He would apply the conclusions drawn to his study of the business cycle in the 19th century.