Was Debt Deflation Operative during the Great Depression?

James S. Fackler and Randall E. Parker

Economic Inquiry, 2005, vol. 43, issue 1, 67-78

Abstract: We demonstrate three facts consistent with the debt deflation/credit view explanation of the Great Depression. First, private medium- and long-term nominal debt during the 1920 s exhibited a combination of a high initial value relative to income and a rapid growth rate that is unparalleled in a consistent data set covering more than half a century. Second, the debt issued during the 1920 s occurred in a stable price regime. Third, near the onset of the Depression, the price process switched to one of deflation. Taken together, the evidence suggests that debt deflation was operative during the Depression. (JEL E31, N22) Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

JEL-codes: E31 N22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ei/cbi006 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:oup:ecinqu:v:43:y:2005:i:1:p:67-78

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Preston McAfee

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().