The Great Depression

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the period of history known as the "Great Depression", following the crash of the stock market in 1929. The paper contends that the lessons learned from the "Great Depression" should be that governments bear a responsibility to see to it that institutions affecting the public are properly run and managed and that individual human beings are protected against the accidents of human error by some sort of government-sponsored safety net.

From the Paper:

"For the past seventy-five years, historians and economists have argued over what brought on this madness. Indeed, the science of macroeconomics was created in large part because of this single event. What was particularly unusual about the Great Depression, as opposed to other "panics" or economic calamities was its worldwide scope. Virtually every country in the world was affected by that fateful stock market crash, and in exceedingly similar ways. Among the theories that attempt to explain this phenomenon are various hypotheses relating to the classic arguments of supply and demand: aggregate demand as related to the Gold Standard and world money supplies, and aggregate supply as related the failure of world economies to adjust to nominal monetary shocks. Prior to the 1930s, most of the world's nations operated according to the gold standard; a small number according to the silver standard. In response to the catastrophic failures induced by the events of late 1929, most countries eventually removed themselves from these standards."

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