Anna Schwartz | Women in Economics

- [interviewer] You spent
a good deal of time

interviewing Anna Schwartz.

- [Claudia Goldin] Yeah, --
[chuckles]

to the extent that I think,
at some point,

she was going to throw me out.
[Laughs]

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- [Narrator] Economists, --

not a group with a lot of Marys,
Natashas, or Juanitas,

and that's caused
a lot of controversy.

However, what's often overlooked
are the actual female economists

who are pushing economics forward
by addressing real world issues.

Welcome to Women In Economics.

- Oh, I should start again? Okay.

Anna Jacobson Schwartz was one
of the leading monetary economists

of the 20th century.

She was born in 1915
and she grew up in the Bronx.

While she was in high school,

she took an economics class
that would change her life.

- [Anna Schwartz] The questions
that we talked about

in this class seemed so vital.

- She started attending
Walton High School

at the very beginnings
of the Great Depression.

All of this economic uncertainty
warranted class discussions

about what was going on outside,
in the real world.

And these discussions inspired
Anna Schwartz to major in economics

when she went to college.

- I couldn't imagine wanting
to pursue further study

in a subject that would not
have included economics.

After graduating
from Barnard College

at the age of 18;
she was that young;

she went on to attend
Columbia University's

graduate economics program.

- [Naomi Pasachoff] There had been
two moments in her career --

which, had she had
a different kind of personality,

might really have changed
the course of her life.

The first was in graduate school.

- She began work
on her dissertation

at the age of 21.

It was a joint project
with two other people,

Arthur Gayer and Walt Rostow.

But it had its challenges.

Funding for her dissertation
had to be cut

because of World War II
and rationing of paper.

- This was 1941,
in the middle of the war.

The urgency of publishing
a historical study --

didn't seem top of the agenda.

- Then she was told,

"No, I'm sorry, we can't give
a PhD for a collaborative project."

- [Claudia] Ultimately,
after all that work,

she was denied her PhD.

But, Anna wasn't deterred.

- So, my mother said, "Oh, well,"
And she went off.

- [Claudia] She had taken
a job at the NBER,

the National Bureau
of Economic Research, --

the nation's leading economic
research center then and today.

In the late 1940s,

Anna began a partnership
with Milton Friedman

of the University of Chicago.

Their initial goal

was to study the effect
of the US money supply

on business cycles.

The project was exciting,
but it had its major challenges.

- My mother was pregnant
with me, child number three,

and somebody at the bureau
said to her, "Don't do it Anna.

I mean, you're obviously
going to have this one,

but, stop, because it's going
to undermine your productivity."

- Schwartz and Friedman didn't have
all the data they needed --

and they lived
in two different states.

And remember,
there was no internet

and phone calls
were prohibitively expensive.

But, again, Anna wasn't deterred.

- Three and a half years later,
my brother Joel was born.

My mother knew
what she wanted to do.

It was her life, she was going
to make it work for herself.

- She scoured libraries for data.

- [Michael Bordo] She had
a tremendous eye for detail,

very very careful,

and she had this ability
to find stuff,

to dig up these data sources
on banks, and the treasury,

and everything else; she did it all.

- All that time,

she was communicating
via snail mail with Milton Friedman.

Finally, in 1963, --
their 15-year collaboration

resulted in one of economic history's
greatest books,

"A Monetary History
of the United States."

- It's one of the most important
books of the 20th century

in terms of impact
on people's research,

in terms of the kinds
of directions economics went.

- [Christina Romer] That book
changed so much

about the field of economics.

It's changed how we teach economics,
it's changed how we do research,

it's changed how we think
about economic policy.

- [Michael] But you got to remember,

she did this incredible
amount of work

and she didn't have a PhD.

- So, what is a monetary history
of the United States?

Among its many discoveries,
the book argues

that the Federal Reserve
played a heavy hand in worsening,

possibly even creating
the Great Depression.

- Actions by the Federal Reserve
have an effect on things

we actually care about

like the real economy,
employment, and unemployment.

It affects how much
businesses want to invest,

how much people want to spend.

- Money matters.

- Today, we just take that
for granted, right?

It just seems obvious.

And what you don't realize is,
back in 1960,

when they were writing that book,
people didn't believe that.

- We've been able to apply
that lesson, that money matters,

to our great benefit,
as just one example.

The Great Recession of 2007
to 2009 was terrible.

But it would have been a lot worse

had we not learned
from Schwartz and Friedman.

After co-authoring
this groundbreaking volume,

Anna Schwartz continued
to work tirelessly

on different aspects
of monetary policy,

and she helped develop
and promote

an entire economic school of thought

called monetarism.

This school of thought

eventually led
to anti-inflation policies

at the Fed and elsewhere
in the 1970s and in the 1980s

and it continues
to have influence today.

All told, Anna Schwartz
published ten books

and more than 100 articles.

- [Eloise Pasachoff] She was actually
very generous with her time

with young economists
who came to her for advice.

- [Michael] Anna was just
so brilliant, and insightful,

and patient.

I was very lucky that I met her.

She really was the best mentor
anybody could have.

- When I was a young professor,
there weren't many women,

at least, in my particular field
of economics.

I saw a woman who could
make brilliant comments,

contribute to papers,

and be deeply respected.

- She was a very important
role model for me.

But, in terms of advice to me,
as a family member,

I think it was more, just,
her life was an example.

- Her passion for economics
knew no limits.

- [Michael] Her face
would just light up

when she talked about economics.

There was always a project
that was coming up.

- [Claudia] She never retired.

- It's customary,
when someone dies,

to have a moment of silence
in their honor.

Anybody who knows Anna

would know that that is exactly
the wrong thing to do.

The best way to honor Anna
is to have vigorous debates

and fierce arguments,

and then to go back
to your institution

and do the best work
you can possibly do,

and then to keep doing
that work for the next 50 years.

♪ [music] ♪

♪ [theme music] ♪

- [Narrator]
Want to better understand

Schwartz and the Federal Reserve?

Click here for related materials
and practice questions.

Or, check out other videos

on how economists
are tackling real-world problems

such as the environment,
poverty, and unemployment.

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