The Legacy of Strong: Central Banking and the Great Depression

Aditi Sahasrabuddhe is a political scientist at Brown University and the author of the new book, Banker’s Trust: How Social Relations Avert Global Financial Collapse. In Aditi’s first appearance on the show, she discusses how central bankers’ relationships in the 1920’s impacted the global economy, how the ending of those relationships played a part in the Great Depression, how we can apply those principles to the Great Recession and the present, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on July 30th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:50 - Aditi’s Intellectual Journey

00:03:57 - Louis Franck at the National Bank of Belgium

00:05:46 - Relationships and Crisis

00:11:07 - Central Bank Club

00:17:06 - Central Bankers and the Butterfly Effect

00:22:33 - Montagu Norman and Benjamin Strong

00:32:06 - Émile Moreau

00:34:48 - Japan

00:38:11 - Benjamin Strong and the Great Depression

00:48:55 - Great Financial Crisis

00:51:18 - India

00:55:25 - Jerome Powell the Central Banker

00:58:23 - Outro