The Great Depression had a devastating effect on much of the world’s developed economies. (For example, at its nadir, around one-quarter of the US workforce was unemployed. And, in Britain, exports virtually halved by 1933 as international trade collapsed.) The political and cultural consequences of the Great Depression were equally far-reaching.
The ongoing search fully to comprehend the worldwide economic collapse in the 1930s remains a dizzying intellectual challenge (‘the Holy Grail of macroeconomics’ according to Ben Bernanke). Moreover, the current global economic and financial tumult has prompted many economists—as well as scholars from related disciplines—to explore the Great Depression anew in the hope of gaining knowledge on how best to survive the latest desperately serious and sustained global economic slump.
As research in and around the Great Depression flourishes as never before this new addition to Routledge’s Critical Concepts in Economics series meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subject’s vast literature and the continuing explosion in scholarly output. Edited by two leading scholars in the field, this new Routledge Major Work is a five-volume collection of classic and cutting-edge contributions.
With a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editors, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, The Great Depression is an essential work of reference and is destined to be valued as a vital research tool.
Volume 1
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I: Some classic texts
1. Lionel Robbins, ‘1914-1933’, in The Great Depression (Macmillan, 1934), pp. 1–54.
2. Lionel Robbins, ‘Conditions of Recovery’, in The Great Depression (Macmillan, 1934), pp. 160–94.
3. H. V. Hodson, Slump and Recovery, 1929–1937: A Survey of World Economic Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs) (Oxford University Press, 1938), pp. 53–157.
4. J. K. Galbraith, The Great Crash 1929 (Hamish Hamilton, 1955).
5. Peter Temin, Did Monetary Factors Cause the Great Depression? (W. W. Norton, 1976), pp. 1–95.
Volume 2
Contents
Acknowledgements
PART II: The United States
6. David Laidler and Roger Sandilands, ‘An Early Harvard Memorandum on Anti-Depression Policies’, History of Political Economy, 2002, 34, 3, 515–32.
7. Ben S. Bernanke, ‘Nonmonetary Effects of the Financial Crisis in the Propagation of the Great Depression’, American Economic Review, 1983, 73, 3, 257–76.
8. Ben S. Bernanke, ‘The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression: A Comparative Approach’, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1995, 27, 1, 1–28.
9. Michael D. Bordo, Ehsan U. Choudhri, and Anna J. Schwartz, ‘Was Expansionary Monetary Policy Feasible During the Great Contraction? An Examination of the Gold Standard Constraint’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 7125 (May 1999).
10. Michael D. Bordo, Ehsan U. Choudhri, and Anna J. Schwartz, ‘Could Stable Money Have Averted the Great Contraction?’, National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 4481 (October 1993).
11. Michael D. Bordo, Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White, ‘The Defining Moment Hypothesis’, The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 1–20.
12. Evans Clark et al., ‘Bank Debts’ and ‘General Recommendations’, The Internal Debts of the United States (Macmillan Press, 1933), pp. 326–406, 424–6.
13. Lauchlin Currie, ‘The Perverse Elasticity of the Federal Reserve System’, The Supply and Control of Money in the United States (Harvard University Press, 1934), pp. 130–41.
14. Christina D. Romer, ‘What Ended the Great Depression?’, Journal of Economic History, 1992, 52, 4, 757–84.
15. Christina D. Romer, ‘The Nation in Depression’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1993, 7, 2, 19–39.
16. Christina D. Romer, ‘The Great Crash and the Onset of the Great Depression’, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1990, 105, 3, 597–624.
Volume 3
Contents
Acknowledgements
17. Irving Fisher, ‘The Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depressions’, Econometrica, 1933, 1, 4, 337–57.
18. Elmus R. Wicker, ‘Federal Reserve Monetary Policy, 1922–33: A Reinterpretation’, Journal of Political Economy, 1965, 73, 4, 325–43.
19. Barry Eichengreen and Jeffrey Sachs, ‘Exchange Rates and Economic Recovery in the 1930s’, Journal of Economic History, 1985, 45, 4, 925–46.
20. Douglas A. Irwin, ‘The Smoot–Hawley Tariff: A Quantitative Assessment’, Review of Economics and Statistics, 1998, 80, 2, 326–34.
21. Barrie A. Wigmore, ‘Was the Bank Holiday of 1933 Caused by a Run on the Dollar?’, Journal of Economic History, 1987, 47, 3, 739–55.
22. David C. Wheelock, ‘Member Bank Borrowing and the Fed’s Contractionary Policy During the Great Depression’, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1990, 22, 4, 409–26.
23. Allan H. Meltzer, ‘Monetary and Other Explanations of the Start of the Great Depression’, Journal of Monetary Economics, 1976, 2, 4, 455–71.
24. Arthur E. Gandolfi and James R. Lothian, ‘Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? A Review Essay’, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1977, 9, 4, 679–91.
25. James D. Hamilton, ‘Monetary Factors in the Great Depression’, Journal of Monetary Economics, 1987, 19, 145–69.
26. Robert J. Gordon and James A. Wilcox, ‘Monetarist Interpretations of the Great Depression: An Evaluation and Critique’, in Karl Brunner (ed.), The Great Depression Revisited (Kluwer, 1981), pp. 49–107.
27. Anna J. Schwartz, ‘Understanding 1929–33’, in Karl Brunner (ed.), The Great Depression Revisited (Kluwer, 1981), pp. 5–48.
28. Charles W. Calomiris, ‘Financial Factors in the Great Depression’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1993, 7, 2, 61–85.
29. Barry Eichengreen, ‘The Origins and Nature of the Great Slump Revisited’, Economic History Review, 1992, 45, 2, 213–39.
30. Michael A. Bernstein, ‘New Deal Economic Policy and the Problem of Recovery’, The Great Depression: Delayed Recovery and Economic Change in America, 1929–1939 (Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 184–206.
Volume 4
Contents
Acknowledgements
PART III: UK and Europe
31. Daniel K. Benjamin and Levis A. Kochin, ‘Searching for an Explanation of Unemployment in Interwar Britain’, Journal of Political Economy, 1979, 87, 3, 441–78.
32. Kent Matthews, Patrick Minford, and Ruthira Naraidoo, ‘Vicious and Virtuous Circles: The Political Economy of Unemployment in Interwar UK and USA’, European Journal of Political Economy, 2008, 24, 3, 605–14.
33. Forrest H. Capie, Terence Mills, and Geoffrey E. Wood, ‘What Happened in 1931?’, in Forrest Capie and Geoffrey Wood (eds.), Financial Crises and the World Banking System (Macmillan, 1986), pp. 120–48.
34. Forrest H. Capie, Terry C. Mills, and Geoffrey E. Wood, ‘Debt Management and Interest Rates: The British Stock Conversion of 1932’, Applied Economics, 1986, 18, 1111–26.
35. Forrest Capie, ‘The British Tariff and Industrial Protection in the 1930s’, Economic History Review, 1978, 31, 3, 399–409.
36. M. Beenstock, F. Capie, and B. Griffiths, ‘The Economic Recovery in the United Kingdom in the 1930s’, Bank of England Academic Panel Paper (1984).
37. Michael Beenstock and Peter Warburton, ‘Wages and Unemployment in Interwar Britain’, Explorations in Economic History, 1986, 23, 2, 153–72.
38. Aurel Schubert, ‘Diary of the Crisis’, in The Credit-Anstalt Crisis of 1931 (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 7–18.
39. Aurel Schubert, ‘The Causes of the Financial Crisis’, in The Credit-Anstalt Crisis of 1931 (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 31–64.
40. Harold James, ‘The Causes of the German Banking Crisis of 1931’, Economic History Review, 1984, 37, 1, 68–87.
41. Peter Temin, ‘The Beginning of the Depression in Germany’, Economic History Review, 1971, 24, 2, 240–8.
42. T. Balderston, ‘The Beginning of the Depression in Germany, 1927–30: Investment and the Capital Market’, Economic History Review, 1983, 36, 3, 395–415.
43. Harold James, ‘Economists and the Depression’, in The German Slump: Politics and Economics, 1924–1936 (Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 324–342.
44. Harold James, ‘A Nazi Recovery?’, The German Slump: Politics and Economics, 1924–1936 (Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 343–419.
45. R. J. Overy, ‘Cars, Roads, and Economic Recovery in Germany, 1932–8’, Economic History Review, 1975, 28, 3, 466–83.
46. Lars Jonung, ‘The Depression in Sweden and the United States: A Comparison of Causes and Policies’, in Karl Brunner (ed.), The Great Depression Revisited (Kluwer, 1981), pp. 286–315.
47. Michele Fratianni and Franco Spinelli, ‘The 1920s and 1930s: Foreign Exchange Policy and Industrial and Financial Restructuring’, A Monetary History of Italy (Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 131–57.
48. Kenneth Mouré, ‘The Depression in France’, Managing the Franc Poincaré: Economic Understanding and Political Constraint in French Monetary Policy, 1928–1936 (Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 10–45.
Volume 5
Contents
Acknowledgements
PART IV: General and Rest of World
49. Ragnar Nurkse, ‘Exchange Fluctuations’, in International Currency Experience: Lessons of the Inter-War Period (League of Nations, Economic, Financial and Transit Department) (Princeton University Press: 1944), pp. 113–42.
50. Ragnar Nurkse, ‘Review and Conclusion’, International Currency Experience: Lessons of the Inter-War Period (League of Nations, Economic, Financial and Transit Department) (Princeton University Press: 1944), pp. 210–40.
51. Jacob Viner, ‘International Aspects of the Gold Standard’, International Economics (The Free Press, 1951), pp. 123–40.
52. Peter Temin, ‘The Midas Touch: The Spread of the Great Depression’, Lessons from the Great Depression: The Lionel Robbins Lectures for 1989 (MIT Press, 1989), pp. 41–87.
53. Peter Temin, ‘Transmission of the Great Depression’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 1993, 7, 2, 87–102.
54. H. W. Arndt, ‘The Lessons’, Economic Lessons of the Nineteen-Thirties (a report issued under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs) (Oxford University Press, 1944), pp. 250–302.
55. W. Arthur Lewis, ‘National Policies’, in Economic Survey, 1919–1939 (Allen & Unwin, 1949), pp. 74–137.
56. Barry Eichengreen, Introduction to Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939 (Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 3–26.
57. Ehsan U. Choudhri and Levis A. Kochin, ‘The Exchange Rate and the International Transmission of Business Cycle Disturbances: Some Evidence from the Great Depression’, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 1980, 12, 4, 565–74.
58. Charles P. Kindleberger, ‘The Slide to the Abyss’, in The World in Depression, 1929–1939 (Allen Lane, 1973), pp. 128–45.
59. Charles P. Kindleberger, ‘The Gold Bloc Yields’, in The World in Depression, 1929–1939 (Allen Lane, 1973), pp. 247–61.
60. James D. Hamilton ‘Role of the International Gold Standard in Propagating the Great Depression’, Contemporary Policy Issues, 1988, VI, 67–89.
61. Tomoko Shiroyama, ‘The Silver Standard: China in the International Monetary System’, China During the Great Depression: Market, State, and the World Economy, 1929–1937 (Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 15–36.
62. Gerardo della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor, ‘Economic Recovery from the Argentine Great Depression: Institutions, Expectations, and the Change of Macroeconomic Regime’, Journal of Economic History, 1999, 59, 3, 567–99.
63. G. R. Hawke, ‘Depression and Recovery in New Zealand’, in R. G. Gregory and N. G. Butlin (eds.), Recovery from the Depression: Australia and the World Economy in the 1930s (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 113–34.
Index
