Bernanke is “the author of one of the best books, I think on the Great Depression,” says Walden, an economist with North Carolina Cooperative Extension. “And in this book … he argues that some of the blame for the Great Depression can be put on the gold standard.

“He says -- and he has research to back this up -- that countries that were on the gold standard actually suffered more during the Great Depression. The reason is that the gold standard inhibited the expansion of the money supply in those countries, and one of the big factors behind the Great Depression was simply the lack of monetary growth -- the lack of money growth in countries.

“So he argues that really the gold standard put a constriction -- put handcuffs, if you will -- on the ability of central bankers to try inflate the country out of the Great Depression,” Walden adds. “And, indeed, I think he would argue this is the reason perhaps for not going back to the gold standard.”