UNDERSTANDING ECONOMIC RECOVERY IN THE 1930S

One of the watershed periods of the twentieth century, the Great Depression was the defining event for at least one generation of world citizenry. Although much has been written about the almost four-year economic collapse that began in mid-1929, very little has been written about the recovery from those cataclysmic times.

Long, tortuous, and uneven as it was, there was indeed a recovery - a revitalization period that lasted over twice as long as the decline itself. In this important book, Frank G. Steindl explores the much-neglected topic of the recovery, concentrating in particular on the macroeconomic developments responsible for the move back to a pre-Depression-level economy.

Providing strong evidence for the role of the quantity of money in the revitalization, the author ultimately concludes that the seemingly robust monetary explanation of the recovery is deficient, as is any that relies principally on aggregate demand impulses. Any accurate understanding of this phenomenon must account for the inherent tendency of the economy to revert to its long-run high employment trend.