The Chicago Plan was introduced by University of Chicago economists in 1933 as a comprehensive plan to reform the monetary and banking system of the United States. The Great Depression had been caused in part by excessive private bank lending, so the plan proposed to eliminate the private bank money creation method of fractional reserve lending. Centralized money creation would prevent booms and busts in the money supply. Multiple bills in the United States Congress are related to the Chicago Plan. Following the Great Recession, the plan was updated in a 2012 International Monetary Fund working paper.