Download or read book The Great Depression and the Limits of Market based Policy written by John Burritt McArthur and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 906 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Limits of the Market written by Paul de Grauwe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The old discussion of 'Market or State' is obsolete. There will always have to be a mix of market and state. The only relevant question is what that mix should look like. How far do we have to let the market go its own way in order to create as much welfare as possible for everyone? What is the responsibility of the government in creating welfare? These are difficult questions. But they are also interesting questions and Paul De Grauwe analyses them in this book. The desired mix of market and state is anything but easy to bring about. It is a difficult and sometimes destructive process that is constantly in motion. There are periods in history in which the market gains in importance. During other periods the opposite occurs and government is more dominant. The turning points in this pendulum swing typically seem to coincide with disruptive events that test the limits of market and state. Why we experience this dynamic is an important theme in the book. Will the market, which today is afforded a greater and greater role due to globalization, run up against its limits? Or do the financial crisis and growing income inequality show that we have already reached those limits? Do we have to brace ourselves for a rejection of the capitalist system? Are we returning to an economy in which the government is running the show?
Download or read book The Great Depression Revisited written by K. Brunner and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fateful days of the great stock market crash entered modem history almost 50 years ago to this day. The cyclic turning point of the U. S. economy oc curred, however, around June 1929, and economic activity receded substantial ly over the subsequent months. The onset of an economic downswing thus became clearly visible before the famous crash. But the October event stays in the public's mind as the symbol of the Great Depression. For nearly four years, until the spring of 1933, the U. S. economy plunged into a deep reces sion. Activity declined, prices fell, and there emerged a massive unemploy ment problem. The economy ultimately overcame this shock in 1933. Prices rose rapidly in spite of substantial margins of unusual resources. Activity ex panded, but occasionally at a somewhat hesitant rate. The expansion, however, was interrupted by another recession of major proportions during 1937-38. The tragic sequence of events shaped public consciousness and influenced new approaches and views in economic policymaking. The activist approach to "stabilization policy" and a wide range of regulatory policies were essentially justified in terms of this experience. These policies were crucially influenced by our understanding and interpretation of the Great Depression. The view of a radically unstable economic process perennially on the edge of serious collapse gained wide popularity and became a central element of the Keynesian tradi- 2 INTRODUCTION tion. It encouraged, with supplementary interpretations, an interventionist and expanding role of the government in our economic affairs.
Download or read book Peddling Protectionism written by Douglas A. Irwin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of America's most infamous tariff The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, which raised U.S. duties on hundreds of imported goods to record levels, is America's most infamous trade law. It is often associated with—and sometimes blamed for—the onset of the Great Depression, the collapse of world trade, and the global spread of protectionism in the 1930s. Even today, the ghosts of congressmen Reed Smoot and Willis Hawley haunt anyone arguing for higher trade barriers; almost single-handedly, they made protectionism an insult rather than a compliment. In Peddling Protectionism, Douglas Irwin provides the first comprehensive history of the causes and effects of this notorious measure, explaining why it largely deserves its reputation for combining bad politics and bad economics and harming the U.S. and world economies during the Depression. In four brief, clear chapters, Irwin presents an authoritative account of the politics behind Smoot-Hawley, its economic consequences, the foreign reaction it provoked, and its aftermath and legacy. Starting as a Republican ploy to win the farm vote in the 1928 election by increasing duties on agricultural imports, the tariff quickly grew into a logrolling, pork barrel free-for-all in which duties were increased all around, regardless of the interests of consumers and exporters. After Herbert Hoover signed the bill, U.S. imports fell sharply and other countries retaliated by increasing tariffs on American goods, leading U.S. exports to shrivel as well. While Smoot-Hawley was hardly responsible for the Great Depression, Irwin argues, it contributed to a decline in world trade and provoked discrimination against U.S. exports that lasted decades. Peddling Protectionism tells a fascinating story filled with valuable lessons for trade policy today.
Download or read book The Midas Paradox written by Scott B. Sumner and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Economic historians have made great progress in unraveling the causes of the Great Depression, but not until Scott Sumner came along has anyone explained the multitude of twists and turns the economy took. In The Midas Paradox: Financial Markets, Government Policy Shocks, and the Great Depression, Sumner offers his magnum opus--the first book to comprehensively explain both monetary and non-monetary causes of that cataclysm. Drawing on financial market data and contemporaneous news stories, Sumner shows that the Great Depression is ultimately a story of incredibly bad policymaking--by central bankers, legislators, and two presidents--especially mistakes related to monetary policy and wage rates. He also shows that macroeconomic thought has long been captive to a false narrative that continues to misguide policymakers in their quixotic quest to promote robust and sustainable economic growth. The Midas Paradox is a landmark treatise that solves mysteries that have long perplexed economic historians, and corrects misconceptions about the true causes, consequences, and cures of macroeconomic instability. Like Milton Friedman and Anna J. Schwartz's A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, it is one of those rare books destined to shape all future research on the subject.
Download or read book Financial Markets and Financial Crises written by R. Glenn Hubbard and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1991-08-13 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Warnings of the threat of an impending financial crisis are not new, but do we really know what constitutes an actual episode of crisis and how, once begun, it can be prevented from escalating into a full-blown economic collapse? Using both historical and contemporary episodes of breakdowns in financial trade, contributors to this volume draw insights from theory and empirical data, from the experience of closed and open economies worldwide, and from detailed case studies. They explore the susceptibility of American corporations to economic downturns; the origins of banking panics; and the behavior of financial markets during periods of crisis. Sever papers specifically address the current thrift crisis—including a detailed analysis of the over 500 FSLIC-insured thrifts in the southeast—and seriously challenge the value of recent measures aimed at preventing future collapse in that industry. Government economists and policy makers, scholars of industry and banking, and many in the business community will find these timely papers an invaluable reference.
Download or read book Years of adventure 1874 1920 written by Herbert Hoover and published by . This book was released on 1951 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gold France and the Great Depression 1919 1932 written by H. Clark Johnson and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: H. Clark Johnson develops a convincing and original narrative of the events that led to the major economic catastrophe of the twentieth century. He identifies the undervaluation and consequent shortage of world gold reserves after World War I as the underlying cause of a sustained international price deflation that brought the Great Depression. And, he argues, the reserve-hoarding policies of central banks--particularly the Bank of France--were its proximate cause. The book presents a detailed history of the events that culminated in the depression, highlighting the role of specific economic incidents, national decisions, and individuals. Johnson’s analysis of how French domestic politics, diplomacy, economic ideology, and monetary policy contributed to the international deflation is new in the literature. He reaches provocative conclusions about the functioning of the pre-1914 gold standard, the spectacular postwar movement of gold to India, the return of sterling to prewar parity in 1925, the German reparations controversy, the stock market crash of 1929, the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, the central European banking crisis of 1931, and the end of sterling convertibility in 1931. The book also provides a nuanced picture of Keynes during the years before his General Theory and deals at length with the history of economic thought in order to explain the failure of recent scholarship to adequately account for the Great Depression.
Download or read book The Great Depression and the New Deal A Very Short Introduction written by Eric Rauchway and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-03-10 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New Deal shaped our nation's politics for decades, and was seen by many as tantamount to the "American Way" itself. Now, in this superb compact history, Eric Rauchway offers an informed account of the New Deal and the Great Depression, illuminating its successes and failures. Rauchway first describes how the roots of the Great Depression lay in America's post-war economic policies--described as "laissez-faire with a vengeance"--which in effect isolated our nation from the world economy just when the world needed the United States most. He shows how the magnitude of the resulting economic upheaval, and the ineffectiveness of the old ways of dealing with financial hardships, set the stage for Roosevelt's vigorous (and sometimes unconstitutional) Depression-fighting policies. Indeed, Rauchway stresses that the New Deal only makes sense as a response to this global economic disaster. The book examines a key sampling of New Deal programs, ranging from the National Recovery Agency and the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Public Works Administration and Social Security, revealing why some worked and others did not. In the end, Rauchway concludes, it was the coming of World War II that finally generated the political will to spend the massive amounts of public money needed to put Americans back to work. And only the Cold War saw the full implementation of New Deal policies abroad--including the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. Today we can look back at the New Deal and, for the first time, see its full complexity. Rauchway captures this complexity in a remarkably short space, making this book an ideal introduction to one of the great policy revolutions in history. About the Series: Oxford's Very Short Introductions offers concise and original introductions to a wide range of subjects--from Islam to Sociology, Politics to Classics, and Literary Theory to History. Not simply a textbook of definitions, each volume provides trenchant and provocative--yet always balanced and complete--discussions of the central issues in a given topic. Every Very Short Introduction gives a readable evolution of the subject in question, demonstrating how it has developed and influenced society. Whatever the area of study, whatever the topic that fascinates the reader, the series has a handy and affordable guide that will likely prove indispensable.
Download or read book Capitalism written by Fred L. Block and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtually everyone—left, right, and center—believes that capitalist economies are autonomous, coherent, and regulated by their own internal laws. This view is an illusion. The reality is that economies organized around the pursuit of private profit are contradictory, incoherent, and heavily shaped by politics and governmental action. But the illusion remains hugely consequential because it has been embraced by political and economic elites who are convinced that they are powerless to change this system. The result is cycles of raised hopes followed by disappointment as elected officials discover they have no legitimate policy tools that can deliver what the public wants. In Capitalism, leading economic sociologist Fred L. Block argues that restoring the vitality of the United States and the world economy can be accomplished only with major reforms on the scale of the New Deal and the post–World War II building of new global institutions.
Download or read book Lessons from the Great Depression written by Peter Temin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1991-10-08 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lessons from the Great Depression provides an integrated view of the depression, covering the experience in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Do events of the 1930s carry a message for the 1990s? Lessons from the Great Depression provides an integrated view of the depression, covering the experience in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. It describes the causes of the depression, why it was so widespread and prolonged, and what brought about eventual recovery. Peter Temin also finds parallels in recent history, in the relentless deflationary course followed by the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and the British government in the early 1980s, and in the dogged adherence by the Reagan administration to policies generated by a discredited economic theory—supply-side economics.
Download or read book Understanding the Great Depression and Failures of Modern Economic Policy written by Dan Blatt and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2016-10-17 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: HISTORY OPENS WINDOWS ON THE FUTURE. The Great Depression highlights your government’s capacity for economic policy stupidity. Do you understand the policy failures behind the Crash of ‘29? Or the policies involved in the aborting of the substantial spring 1930 economic and stock market recovery? Or the policies that prevented the spectacular summer 1932 bull market in stocks and agricultural commodities from stimulating recovery in the broader economy? Or how New Deal policies extended the Great Depression for an additional half decade despite more than doubling the monetary supply and massive resort to budget deficits? Or how the Great Depression ended in 1940 with unemployment dropping about 7 percentage points in the two years before the U.S. entered WW-II and began its massive wartime budget deficits? The Great Depression is just a highlight in a century of repeated failures for Federal Reserve System monetary policy. Under its care, the dollar has lost about 90 percent of its purchasing power. Its policies have also bestowed upon the economy the Keynesian inflationary morass of the 1970s and the asset price boom and bust nature of the current business cycle. Understanding why interest rate suppression policies aren’t working, haven’t worked in the past, and can never work is herein explained.
Download or read book Globalization and Beyond written by Jon Shefner and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Explores the origins and the reciprocal influences of globalization and the recent economic crisis, and suggests what new ideological foundations and geographic regions will be ascendant"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book FDR s Folly written by Jim Powell and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Depression and the New Deal. For generations, the collective American consciousness has believed that the former ruined the country and the latter saved it. Endless praise has been heaped upon President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for masterfully reining in the Depression’s destructive effects and propping up the country on his New Deal platform. In fact, FDR has achieved mythical status in American history and is considered to be, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, one of the greatest presidents of all time. But would the Great Depression have been so catastrophic had the New Deal never been implemented? In FDR’s Folly, historian Jim Powell argues that it was in fact the New Deal itself, with its shortsighted programs, that deepened the Great Depression, swelled the federal government, and prevented the country from turning around quickly. You’ll discover in alarming detail how FDR’s federal programs hurt America more than helped it, with effects we still feel today, including: • How Social Security actually increased unemployment • How higher taxes undermined good businesses • How new labor laws threw people out of work • And much more This groundbreaking book pulls back the shroud of awe and the cloak of time enveloping FDR to prove convincingly how flawed his economic policies actually were, despite his good intentions and the astounding intellect of his circle of advisers. In today’s turbulent domestic and global environment, eerily similar to that of the 1930s, it’s more important than ever before to uncover and understand the truth of our history, lest we be doomed to repeat it.
Download or read book The Return of Depression Economics written by Paul R. Krugman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 1999 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of "The Age of Diminished Expectations" returns with a sobering tour of the global economic crises of the last two years.
Download or read book Communities in Action written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.
Download or read book The Defining Moment written by Michael D. Bordo and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In contemporary American political discourse, issues related to the scope, authority, and the cost of the federal government are perennially at the center of discussion. Any historical analysis of this topic points directly to the Great Depression, the "moment" to which most historians and economists connect the origins of the fiscal, monetary, and social policies that have characterized American government in the second half of the twentieth century. In the most comprehensive collection of essays available on these topics, The Defining Moment poses the question directly: to what extent, if any, was the Depression a watershed period in the history of the American economy? This volume organizes twelve scholars' responses into four categories: fiscal and monetary policies, the economic expansion of government, the innovation and extension of social programs, and the changing international economy. The central focus across the chapters is the well-known alternations to national government during the 1930s. The Defining Moment attempts to evaluate the significance of the past half-century to the American economy, while not omitting reference to the 1930s. The essays consider whether New Deal-style legislation continues to operate today as originally envisioned, whether it altered government and the economy as substantially as did policies inaugurated during World War II, the 1950s, and the 1960s, and whether the legislation had important precedents before the Depression, specifically during World War I. Some chapters find that, surprisingly, in certain areas such as labor organization, the 1930s responses to the Depression contributed less to lasting change in the economy than a traditional view of the time would suggest. On the whole, however, these essays offer testimony to the Depression's legacy as a "defining moment." The large role of today's government and its methods of intervention—from the pursuit of a more active monetary policy to the maintenance and extension of a wide range of insurance for labor and business—derive from the crisis years of the 1930s.
