Without his vision of the reasons behind the Great Depression of the 1930s, formed during his career as a researcher, the Fed’s response would probably have been much slower and more timid. Already before Bernanke’s work, research had begun to emphasise the role of monetary policy errors in deepening the 1930s’ depression.
The key publication was the famous “A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960” by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz, published in 1963.