Depression economics before the General Theory: the order in Cole's Chaos

Nicholas Snowden

Oxford Economic Papers, 2009, vol. 61, issue 3, 415-439

Abstract: Exploiting a neglected account of earlier macroeconomic thinking, the present study addresses continuing controversies over the revolutionary status of Keynes' General Theory, and the origins of the Great Depression that inspired it. Although G.D.H. Cole's reputation as a labour historian endures, his popular writings on economics are no longer influential. Among these works, a 1932 volume combined Cole's historical perspective on the sources of the Depression with an attempt to present, for the general reader, a consensus account of the economic mechanisms involved. Deflationary forces originating in the real economy, and exacerbated by the operation of the international gold standard, were seen as inducing US policy actions that promoted the Wall Street boom. Supportive of modern writing on inter-war monetary arrangements, Cole's account suggests that structural issues in the emergence of demand deficiency, and the role of the market crash in the subsequent slump, have been under-emphasized in recent research. Copyright 2009 , Oxford University Press.

Date: 2009
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oep/gpn025 (application/pdf)
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:oxecpp:v:61:y:2009:i:3:p:415-439

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

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Economic Papers is currently edited by James Forder and Francis J. Teal

More articles in Oxford Economic Papers from Oxford University Press Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().