Great Depression, the longest, deepest, and most pervasive depression in American history, lasted from 1929 to 1939. Its effects were felt in virtually all corners of the world, and it is one of the great economic calamities in history.
In previous depressions, such as those of the 1870s and 1890s, real per capita gross domestic product (GDP)—the sum of all goods and services produced, weighted by market prices and adjusted for inflation—had returned to its original level within five years. In the Great Depression, real per capita GDP was still below its 1929 level a decade later.
Economic activity began to decline in the summer of 1929, and by 1933 real GDP fell more than 25 percent, erasing all of the economic growth of the previous quarter century. Industrial production was especially hard hit, falling some 50 percent. By comparison, industrial production had fallen 7 percent in the 1870s and 13 percent in the 1890s.
From the depths of depression in 1933, the economy recovered until 1937. This expansion was followed by a brief but severe recession, and then another period of economic growth. It was not until the 1940s that previous levels of output were surpassed. This led some to wonder how long the depression would have continued without the advent of World War II.
In the absence of government statistics, scholars have had to estimate unemployment rates for the 1930s. The sharp drop in GDP and the anecdotal evidence of millions of people standing in soup lines or wandering the land as hoboes suggest that these rates were unusually high. It is widely accepted that the unemployment rate peaked above 25 percent in 1933 and remained above 14 percent into the 1940s. Yet these figures may underestimate the true hardship of the times: those who became too discouraged to seek work would not have been counted as unemployed. Likewise, those who moved from the cities to the countryside in order to feed their families would not have been counted. Even those who had jobs tended to see their hours of work fall: the average work week, 47 to 49 hours in the 1920s, fell to 41.7 hours in 1934 and stayed between 42 and 45 until 1942.
The banking system witnessed a number of "panics" during which depositors rushed to take their money out of banks rumored to be in trouble. Many banks failed under this pressure, while others were forced to merge: the number of banks in the United States fell 35 percent between 1929 and 1933.
While the Great Depression affected some sectors of the economy more than others, and thus some regions of the country more than others, all sectors and regions experienced a serious decline in output and a sharp rise in unemployment. The hardship of unemployment, though concentrated in the working class, affected millions in the middle class as well. Farmers suffered too, as the average price of their output fell by half (whereas the aggregate price level fell by only a third).
The Great Depression followed almost a decade of spectacular economic growth. Between 1921 and 1929, output per worker grew about 5.9 percent per year, roughly double the average in the twentieth century. Unemployment and inflation were both very low throughout this period as well. One troublesome characteristic of the 1920s, however, was that income distribution became significantly less equal. Also, a boom in housing construction, associated in part with an automobile-induced rush to the suburbs, collapsed in the late 1920s. And automakers themselves worried throughout the late 1920s that they had saturated their market fighting for market share; auto sales began to slide in the spring of 1929.
Technological advances in production processes (notably electrification, the assembly line, and continuous processing of homogenous goods such as chemicals) were largely responsible for the advances in productivity in the 1920s. These advances induced the vast bulk of firms to invest in new plants and equipment In the early 1920s, there were also innovative new products, such as radio, but the decade after 1925 was the worst in the twentieth century for new product innovation.
Causes of the Great Depression
In 1929 the standard economic theory suggested that a calamity such as the Great Depression could not happen: the economy possessed equilibrating mechanisms that would quickly move it toward full employment. For example, high levels of unemployment should put downward pressure on wages, thereby encouraging firms to increase employment. Before the Great Depression, most economists urged governments to concentrate on maintaining a balanced budget. Since tax receipts inevitably fell during a downturn, governments often increased tax rates and reduced spending. By taking money out of the economy, such policies tended to accelerate the downturn, though the effect was likely small.
As the depression continued, many economists advised the federal government to increase spending, in order to provide employment. Economists also searched for theoretical justifications for such policies. Some thought the depression was caused by overproduction: consumers did not wish to consume all that was produced. These analysts often attributed overproduction to the increased disparity in income that developed in the 1920s, for the poor spend a greater percentage of their income than do the rich. Others worried about a drop in the number of profitable investment opportunities. Often, these arguments were couched in apocalyptic terms: the Great Depression was thought to be the final crisis of capitalism, a crisis that required major institutional restructuring. Others, notably Joseph Schumpeter, pointed the finger at technology and suggested that the Great Depression reflected the failure of entrepreneurs to bring forth new products. He felt the depression was only temporary and a recovery would eventually occur.
The stock market crash of 1929 and the bank panics of the early 1930s were dramatic events. Many commentators emphasized the effect these had in decreasing the spending power of those who lost money. Some went further and blamed the Federal Reserve System for allowing the money supply, and thus average prices, to decline.
John Maynard Keynes in 1936 put forward a theory arguing that the amount individuals desired to save might exceed the amount they wanted to invest. In such an event, they would necessarily consume less than was produced (since, if we ignore foreign trade, total income must be either consumed or saved, while total output is the sum of consumption goods and investment goods). Keynes was skeptical of the strength of equilibrating mechanisms and shocked many economists who clung to a faith in the ability of the market system to govern itself. Yet within a decade the profession had largely embraced his approach, in large part because it allowed them to analyze deficient consumption and investment demand without reference to a crisis of capitalism. Moreover, Keynes argued that, because a portion of income was used for taxes and output included government services, governments might be able to correct a situation of deficient demand by spending more than they tax.
In the early postwar period, Keynesian theory dominated economic thinking. Economists advised governments to spend more than they taxed during recessions and tax more than spend during expansions. Although governments were not always diligent in following this prescription, the limited severity of early postwar business cycles was seen as a vindication of Keynesian theory. Yet little attention was paid to the question of how well it could explain the Great Depression.
In 1963, Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz proposed a different view of the depression. They argued that, contrary to Keynesian theory, the deflationary actions of the Federal Reserve were primarily at fault. In the ensuing decades, Keynesians and "monetarists" argued for the supremacy of their favored theory. The result was a recognition that both explanations had limitations. Keynesians struggled to comprehend why either consumption or investment demand would have fallen so precipitously as to trigger the depression (though saturation in the housing and automobile markets, among others, may have been important). Monetarists struggled to explain how smallish decreases in the money supply could trigger such a massive downturn, especially since the price level fell as fast as the supply of money, and thus real (inflation-adjusted) aggregate demand need not have fallen.
In the 1980s and 1990s, some economists argued that the actions of the Federal Reserve had caused banks to decrease their willingness to loan money, leading to a severe decrease in consumption and, especially, investment. Others argued that the Federal Reserve and central banks in other countries were constrained by the gold standard, under which the value of a particular currency is fixed to the price of gold.
Some economists today speak of a consensus that holds the Federal Reserve, the gold standard, or both, largely responsible for the Great Depression. Others suggest that a combination of several theoretical approaches is needed to understand this calamity.
Most economists have analyzed the depression from a macroeconomic perspective. This perspective, spawned by the depression and by Keynes's theories, focuses on the interaction of aggregate economic variables, including consumption, investment, and the money supply. Only fairly recently have some macroeconomists begun to consider how other factors, such as technological innovation, would influence the level of economic activity.
Beginning initially in the 1930s, however, some students of the Great Depression have examined the unusually high level of process innovation in the 1920s and the lack of product innovation in the decade after 1925. The introduction of new production processes requires investment but may well cause firms to let some of their workforce go; by reducing prices, new processes may also reduce the amount consumers spend. The introduction of new products almost always requires investment and more employees; they also often increase the propensity of individuals to consume. The time path of technological innovation may thus explain much of the observed movements in consumption, investment, and employment during the interwar period. There may also be important interactions with the monetary variables discussed above: in particular, firms are especially dependent on bank finance in the early stages of developing a new product.
Effects of the Great Depression
The psychological, cultural, and political repercussions of the Great Depression were felt around the world, but it had a significantly different impact in different countries. In particular, it is widely agreed that the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany was associated with the economic turmoil of the 1930s. No similar threat emerged in the United States. While President Franklin Roosevelt did introduce a variety of new programs, he was initially elected on a traditional platform that pledged to balance the budget. Why did the depression cause less political change in the United States than elsewhere? A much longer experience with democracy may have been important. In addition, a faith in the "American dream," whereby anyone who worked hard could succeed, was apparently retained and limited the agitation for political change.
Effects on individuals. Much of the unemployment experience of the depression can be accounted for by workers who moved in and out of periods of employment and unemployment that lasted for weeks or months. These individuals suffered financially, to be sure, but they were generally able to save, borrow, or beg enough to avoid the severest hardships. Their intermittent periods of employment helped to stave off a psychological sense of failure. Yet there were also numerous workers who were unemployed for years at a time. Among this group were those with the least skills or the poorest attitudes. Others found that having been unemployed for a long period of time made them less attractive to employers. Long-term unemployment appears to have been concentrated among people in their late teens and early twenties and those older than fifty-five. For many that came of age during the depression, World War II would provide their first experience of full-time employment.
With unemployment rates exceeding 25 percent, it was obvious that most of the unemployed were not responsible for their plight. Yet the ideal that success came to those who worked hard remained in place, and thus those who were unemployed generally felt a severe sense of failure. The incidence of mental health problems rose, as did problems of family violence. For both psychological and economic reasons, decisions to marry and to have children were delayed. Although the United States provided more relief to the unemployed than many other countries (including Canada), coverage was still spotty. In particular, recent immigrants to the United States were often denied relief. Severe malnutrition afflicted many, and the palpable fear of it, many more.
Effects by gender and race. Federal, state, and local governments, as well as many private firms, introduced explicit policies in the 1930s to favor men over women for jobs. Married women were often the first to be laid off. At a time of widespread unemployment, it was felt that jobs should be allocated only to male "breadwinners." Nevertheless, unemployment rates among women were lower than for men during the 1930s, in large part because the labor market was highly segmented by gender, and the service sector jobs in which women predominated were less affected by the depression. The female labor force participation rate—the proportion of women seeking or possessing paid work—had been rising for decades; the 1930s saw only a slight increase; thus, the depression acted to slow this societal change (which would greatly accelerate during World War II, and then again in the postwar period).
Many surveys found unemployment rates among blacks to be 30 to 50 percent higher than among whites. Discrimination was undoubtedly one factor: examples abound of black workers being laid off to make room for white workers. Yet another important factor was the preponderance of black workers in industries (such as automobiles) that experienced the greatest reductions in employment. And the migration of blacks to northern industrial centers during the 1920s may have left them especially prone to seniority-based layoffs.
Cultural effects. One might expect the Great Depression to have induced great skepticism about the economic system and the cultural attitudes favoring hard work and consumption associated with it. As noted, the ideal of hard work was reinforced during the depression, and those who lived through it would place great value in work after the war. Those who experienced the depression were disposed to thrift, but they were also driven to value their consumption opportunities. Recall that through the 1930s it was commonly thought that one cause of the depression was that people did not wish to consume enough: an obvious response was to value consumption more.
The New Deal. The nonmilitary spending of the federal government accounted for 1.5 percent of GDP in 1929 but 7.5 percent in 1939. Not only did the government take on new responsibilities, providing temporary relief and temporary public works employment, but it established an ongoing federal presence in social security (both pensions and unemployment insurance), welfare, financial regulation and deposit insurance, and a host of other areas. The size of the federal government would grow even more in the postwar period. Whether the size of government today is larger than it would have been without the depression is an open question. Some scholars argue for a "ratchet effect," whereby government expenditures increase during crises, but do not return to the original level thereafter. Others argue that the increase in government brought on by the depression would have eventually happened anyhow.
In the case of unemployment insurance, at least, the United States might today have a more extensive system if not for the depression. Both Congress and the Supreme Court were more oriented toward states' rights in the 1930s than in the early postwar period. The social security system thus gave substantial influence to states. Some have argued that this has encouraged a "race to the bottom," whereby states try to attract employers with lower unemployment insurance levies. The United States spends only a fraction of what countries such as Canada spend per capita on unemployment insurance.
Some economists have suggested that public works programs exacerbated the unemployment experience of the depression. They argue that many of those on relief would have otherwise worked elsewhere. However, there were more workers seeking employment than there were job openings; thus, even if those on relief did find work elsewhere, they would likely be taking the jobs of other people.
The introduction of securities regulation in the 1930s has arguably done much to improve the efficiency, fairness, and thus stability of American stock markets. Enhanced bank supervision, and especially the introduction of deposit insurance from 1934, ended the scourge of bank panics: most depositors no longer had an incentive to rush to their bank at the first rumor of trouble. But deposit insurance was not an unmixed blessing; in the wake of the failure of hundreds of small savings and loan institutions decades later, many noted that deposit insurance allowed banks to engage in overly risky activities without being penalized by depositors. The Roosevelt administration also attempted to stem the decline in wages and prices by establishing "industry codes," whereby firms and unions in an industry agreed to maintain set prices and wages. Firms seized the opportunity to collude and agreed in many cases to restrict output in order to inflate prices; this particular element of the New Deal likely served to slow the recovery. Similar attempts to enhance agricultural prices were more successful, at least in the goal of raising farm incomes (but thus increased the cost of food to others).
International Effects
It was long argued that the Great Depression began in the United States and spread to the rest of the world. Many countries, including Canada and Germany, experienced similar levels of economic hardship. In the case of Europe, it was recognized that World War I and the treaties ending it (which required large reparation payments from those countries that started and lost the war) had created weaknesses in the European economy, especially in its financial system. Thus, despite the fact that trade and capital flows were much smaller than today, the American downturn could trigger downturns throughout Europe. As economists have come to emphasize the role the international gold standard played in, at least, exacerbating the depression, the argument that the depression started in the United States has become less central.
With respect to the rest of the world, there can be little doubt that the downturn in economic activity in North America and Europe had a serious impact. Many Third World countries were heavily dependent on exports and suffered economic contractions as these markets dried up. At the same time, they were hit by a decrease in foreign investment flows, especially from the United States, which was a reflection of the monetary contraction in the United States. Many Third World countries, especially in Latin America, responded by introducing high tariffs and striving to become self-sufficient. This may have helped them recover from the depression, but probably served to seriously slow economic growth in the postwar period.
Developed countries also introduced high tariffs during the 1930s. In the United States, the major one was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930, which arguably encouraged other countries to retaliate with tariffs of their own. Governments hoped that the money previously spent on imports would be spent locally and enhance employment. In return, however, countries lost access to foreign markets, and therefore employment in export-oriented sectors. The likely effect of the increase in tariffs was to decrease incomes around the world by reducing the efficiency of the global economy; the effect the tariffs had on employment is less clear.
Bibliography
Barnard, Rita. The Great Depression and the Culture of Abundance: Kenneth Fearing, Nathanael West, and Mass Culture in the 1930s. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Explores the impact of the depression on cultural attitudes and literature.
Bernanke, Ben S. Essays on the Great Depression. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000. Emphasizes bank panics and the gold standard.
Bernstein, Michael A. The Great Depression: Delayed Recovery and Economic Change in America, 1929–1939. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Argues for the interaction of technological and monetary forces and explores the experience of several industries.
Bordo, Michael D., Claudia Goldin, and Eugene N. White, eds. The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Evaluates the impact of a range of New Deal policies and international agreements.
Friedman, Milton, and Anna J. Schwartz. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963.
Hall, Thomas E., and J. David Ferguson. The Great Depression: An International Disaster of Perverse Economic Policies. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
Keynes, John M. The General Theory Of Employment, Interest, and Money. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964. Original edition published in 1936.
Margo, Robert A. "Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s." Journal of Economic Perspectives 7, no. 2 (spring 1993): 41–59.
Rosenbloom, Joshua, and William Sundstrom. "The Sources of Regional Variation in the Severity of the Great Depression: Evidence from U.S. Manufacturing 1919–1937." Journal of Economic History 59 (1999): 714–747.
Rosenof, Theodore. Economics in the Long Run: New Deal Theorists and Their Legacies, 1933–1993. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Looks at how Keynes, Schumpeter, and others influenced later economic analysis.
Rothermund, Dietmar. The Global Impact of the Great Depression, 1929–1939. London: Routledge, 1996. Extensive treatment of the Third World.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical, and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalist Process. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939.
Szostak, Rick. Technological Innovation and the Great Depression. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1995. Explores the causes and effects of the unusual course that technological innovation took between the wars.
Temin, Peter. Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? New York: Norton, 1976. Classic early defense of Keynesian explanation.
———. Lessons from the Great Depression. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989. Emphasizes the role of the gold standard.
Personal Effects of the Depression
The study of the human cost of unemployment reveals that a new class of poor and dependents is rapidly rising among the ranks of young sturdy ambitious laborers, artisans, mechanics, and professionals, who until recently maintained a relatively high standard of living and were the stable self-respecting citizens and taxpayers of the state. Unemployment and loss of income have ravaged numerous homes. It has broken the spirit of their members, undermined their health, robbed them of self-respect, and destroyed their efficiency and employability. Many households have been dissolved, little children parcelled out to friends, relatives, or charitable homes; husbands and wives, parents and children separated, temporarily or permanently.…Men young and old have taken to the road. Day after day the country over they stand in the breadlines for food. … The law must step in and brand as criminals those who have neither desire nor inclination to violate accepted standards of society.… Physical privation un dermines body and heart.… Idleness destroys not only purchasing power, lowering the standards of living, but also destroys efficiency and finally breaks the spirit.
SOURCE: From the 1932 Report of the California Unemployment Commission.
![Chart 1: USA GDP annual pattern and long-term trend, 1920-40, in billions of constant dollars[3]](http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/d/d1/180px-Gdp20-40.jpg)
