Federal Reserve Policy in the Great Depression

Lloyd B. Thomas

Chapter Chapter 8 in The Financial Crisis and Federal Reserve Policy, 2011, pp 131-150 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Students of U.S. economic history agree that Americans living during 1929 to 1933 experienced the biggest economic catastrophe in the history of the nation. The terror visited upon families by the disaster cannot be expressed in numbers. However, an impression of the severity of the Great Depression can be gained by examining a handful of pertinent facts. From the fall of 1929 to the spring of 1933, the nation’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) fell nearly 50 percent. Real GDP declined by 30 percent and industrial production fell in half. This decline in real GDP was more than seven times the magnitude of the contraction experienced during the Great Recession of 2007–2009, the most severe U.S. downturn since the Great Depression. Table 8–1 indicates some of the salient indicators of macroeconomic conditions in the United States from 1928 to 1938.

Keywords: Interest Rate; Central Bank; Federal Reserve; Money Supply; Real Interest Rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-11807-2_8

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DOI: 10.1057/9780230118072_8

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