Exchange Rates and Economic Recovery in the 1930s: An Extension to Asia

Scholars have found a positive relationship between the magnitude of currency depreciation and the extent of recovery from the Great Depression for Europe and Latin America. The relationship between currency depreciation and economic activity during the Great Depression for Asian economies has not yet been explored. This paper examines this topic using data from 13 Asian economies: China, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam. We find that Asian economies responded in a similar way to currency depreciation during the Great Depression as did European and Latin American countries.     

20世纪30年代美国对日本的经济政策

20世纪30年代,经济危机肆意蔓延,美国国内孤立主义盛行,国际形势风云变幻.在这一时代大背景下美国该时期对远东的日本采取了一系列经济政策.主要包括:美国对日本的贸易和投资政策,美国垄断资本家对日本的军事经济建设的重要作用及当时的军事力量对比对美对日经济政策的重要影响.30年代美对日的经济政策具有一定的绥靖主义色彩,是当时形势之产物,是其国家利益使然.     

Unemployment in Denmark in the 1930s

Abstract

This paper examines three estimates of Danish unemployment in the 1930s by Maddison (1964), Hansen (1974) and Pedersen (1977). Secondly, two new estimates of the Danish unemployment are presented based on the available monthly data from the unemployment [unds and on the official registration of unemployment outside the funds. The new estimates of the early 1930s are in between the estimates of Pedersen and Maddison, while it is argued that both Maddison and Pedersen overrate the increase in unemployment in the later part of the period.     

Power to the people: working-class demand for household power in 1930s Britain

The 1930s witnessed an intense struggle between gas and electricity suppliers for the working class market, where the incumbent utility—gas—was also a reasonably efficient (and cheaper) General Purpose Technology for most domestic uses. Local monopolies for each supplier boosted substitution effects between fuel types—as alternative fuels constituted the only local competition. Using newly-rediscovered returns from a major national household expenditure survey, we employ geographically-determined instrumental variables, more commonly used in the industrial organization literature, to show that gas provided a significant competitor, tempering electricity prices, while electricity demand was also responsive to marketing initiatives.     

婚恋90

时间进入上世纪90年代初期,那个时候"三转一响”已经过时了,.三黄一窝鸡(机)"成为年轻人新的追求.三黄是指金项链、金耳环、金戒指,一窝鸡(机)就是彩电、冰箱、洗衣机.电视机替代广播成为百姓了解国内、国际大事小情的工具,电冰箱使人们可以一个星期只去一次菜市场,洗衣机彻底解放人们的双手,再也不用自己出力了.     

Railway and trade in modern China: Evidence from the 1930s

There are controversies on the trade promoting effect of the railroad in modern times in the existing literature. We estimate the impact of the railway on domestic trade through forward linkages using an Eaton-Kortum model with county-commodity level data in Shandong and Hunan provinces in 1933. We show that the railway significantly decreased the trade cost and improved bilateral trade in Hunan and Shandong provinces. In particular, for every 10% decrease in geographical distance, the value of bilateral trade increased by 8.98%. In addition, our results on the existence of provincial border effect in Hunan and the disappearance of it in Shandong, imply that the emergence of railway contributed to the removal of provincial border effect. Furthermore, we find that counties with railway connections had higher per capita output, especially for those with a larger manufacturing sector. Our results echo those found in Andrabi and Kuehlwein (2010) and Donaldson (2018) for British India and Pérez-Cervantes (2014) for the US.     

The gold standard,trade and recovery in the 1930s:

Abstract

For some twenty years, Norway's recovery from the depression of the 1930s has been explained by the supply-side transformation of domestic industry. This article presents an alternative view. By analysing Norwegian developments in an international context, the mechanism of recovery is related to the increased foreign demand for Norwegian export products following the ending of Gold Standard constraints in 1931. Generally, we argue that just as it was external forces that led Norway into the Great Depression, such forces also paved the way for the subsequent recovery. Increased exports renewed optimism in domestic markets, bringing about a growth in investment activities and eventually a recovery in private consumption.     

J. Soedradjad Djiwandono,Bank Indonesia and the crisis

Soedradjad Djiwandono, Governor of Bank Indonesia during the critical early months of the Asian crisis, had already written extensively on the period (including in this journal), but this book brings a more comprehensive version of his story to a wider audience. His focus is on central bank issues—the exchange rate, interest rates, capital flows and the insolvency of the banking system—but as these are the defining issues of the crisis, the book provides a rare and valuable contribution to the still-incomplete history of this painful period. This review puts his account in context and offers some commentary on the issues.     

Japanese labour in the 1990s: stability and stagnation

We review the state of the labour market and employment practicesin Japan over the past 15 years and try to evaluate the natureof the changes that have been occurring. We also look at howgovernment policy has reacted to the conditions in the labourmarket and what implications this has for the future. Althoughthere has been a continual shift of resources away from manufacturingand agriculture into services, employment practices have notbeen changing so rapidly, and job protection is actually stronger.This, along with wage restraint, accounts for why unemploymenthas only increased by some 2.5 percentage points during almosta decade of stagnation. We also note that much government policyhas acted to maintain existing employment practices and thatlabour economists are divided as to whether or not this is agood thing.     

Currency devaluations and beggar-my-neighbour penalties: evidence from the 1930s

The currency devaluations of the 1930s facilitated a faster recovery from the Great Depression in the countries depreciating, but their unilateral manner provoked retaliatory and discriminatory commercial policies abroad. This article explores the importance of the retaliatory motive in the imposition of trade barriers by gold bloc countries during the 1930s and its effects on trade. Relying on new and existing datasets on the introduction of quotas, tariffs, and bilateral trade costs, the quantification of the discriminatory response suggests that these countries imposed significant beggar-my-neighbour penalties. The penalties reduced trade to a similar degree that modern regional trade agreements foster trade. Furthermore, the analysis of contemporary newspapers reveals that the devaluations of the early 1930s triggered an Anglo-French trade conflict marked by tit-for-tat protectionist policies. With regards to global trade, the unilateral currency depreciations came at a high price in political and economic terms. These costs must have necessarily reduced their benefit to the world as a whole.     

Unemployment and Economic Policy in Denmark in the 1930s

Abstract

The paper examines Danish unemployment and the employment policy in the 1930s. The unemployment data indicate that though the unemployment increased dramatically the rate of unemployment remained low. The official Danish unemployment records definitely underestimated the actual unemployment in the early 1930s, but the discrepancy was hardly as big as some scholars have suggested. The paper furthermore points out that the rather atypical rise in the Danish unemployment from the mid-1930s can be attributed to a rise in the natural rate of unemployment due to an improved unemployment insurance coverage and a more comprehensive registration of the unemployment. The second part of the paper deals with the Danish employment policy. Unemployment remained high on the political agenda, but the employment problem never became the main target for the economic policy. An active employment policy was constrained by the problems of the balance of payments and the political disagreements in parliament. While the macroeconomic policy did help to stabilize the economy and the employment, the number of measures directly targeting the labour market was small, and they seldom gave rise to much job creation.     

Against the mainstream: Nazi privatization in 1930s Germany1

Nationalization was particularly important in the early 1930s in Germany. The state took over a large industrial concern, large commercial banks, and other minor firms. In the mid‐1930s, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in western capitalistic countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s. Privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party. In addition, growing financial restrictions because of the cost of the rearmament programme provided additional motivations for privatization.     

青岛三十年代文化现象漫议

还是那句话,青岛被世界认识或知道,除了啤酒之外,无非就是德式、日式的老房子了。