Comment on “Selgin, Lastrapes, and White's 'Has the Fed Been a Failure?'”

In “Has the Fed Been a Failure?,” Selgin, Lastrapes, and White (SLW) argue that U.S. aggregate economic performance has not obviously improved since the founding of the Fed in 1914. They also suggest that alternatives to the Fed, such as a gold standard, might have generated better performance. I present additional data that challenge these conclusions.