The Sources of Regional Variation in the Severity of the Great Depression: Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing, 1919-1937

Joshua Rosenbloom () and William A. Sundstrom

No 6288, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: The severity of the Great Depression in the United States varied by region. Most notably compared with the rest of the country, the South Atlantic states experienced a milder contraction while the Mountain states suffered more severely. The impact of the contraction was more" uniform across other regions of the country--surprisingly so, considering the large regional" differences in industrial structure. We employ data from the biennial Census of Manufactures on" 20 individual manufacturing industries disaggregated by state to analyze the relative" contributions of industry mix and location to regional variations in economic performance during" the period 1919-1937. Industrial composition had a significant impact on regional employment" growth, with regions that concentrated on the production of durable goods or inputs to the" construction sector tending to fare worse than others. Long-run regional trends also played an" important role in regional variation, and explain much of the South Atlantic region's more" favorable performance over the cycle.

JEL-codes: N12 N62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1997-11
Note: EFG DAE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published as Rosenbloom, Joshua L. and William A. Sundstrom. "The Sources Of Regional Variation In The Severity Of The Great Depression: Evidence From U.S. Manufacturing, 1919-1937," Journal of Economic History, 1999, v59(3,Sep), 714-747.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w6288.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Sources of Regional Variation in the Severity of the Great Depression: Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing, 1919–1937 (1999)
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:6288

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w6288

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 ().