Washington responded to two crises with extraordinary monetary and fiscal interventions. Why did COVID-era stimulus produce soaring inflation when the response to the 2008 financial crisis did not?

Congress rejected constitutional alternatives in favor of remaking a nation. Abroad, as at home, lawmakers cannot manufacture preferred social outcomes simply by spending more money.

Tobias Straumann’s new book explains how economic freedoms and currency reform helped West Germany outstrip not just the Soviet Socialist East, but many other nations, on its way to economic recovery.