What - or Who - Started the Great Depression?

Lee Ohanian

No 15258, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Herbert Hoover. I develop a theory of labor market failure for the Depression based on Hoover's industrial labor program that provided industry with protection from unions in return for keeping nominal wages fixed. I find that the theory accounts for much of the depth of the Depression and for the asymmetry of the depression across sectors. The theory also can reconcile why deflation/low nominal spending apparently had such large real effects during the 1930s, but not during other periods of significant deflation.

JEL-codes: E3 N1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-his and nep-mac
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

Published as Ohanian, Lee E., 2009. "What - or who - started the great depression?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(6), pages 2310-2335, November.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15258.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: What - or who - started the great depression? (2009)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:15258

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w15258

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().