Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Depression economics before the General Theory: the order in Cole’s Chaos
AU - Snowden, P N
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Exploiting a neglected account of earlier macroeconomic thinking, the present study addresses continuing controversies over the revolutionary status of Keynes’ General Theory, and the origins of the Great Depression that inspired it. Although G.D.H. Cole's reputation as a labour historian endures, his popular writings on economics are no longer influential. Among these works, a 1932 volume combined Cole's historical perspective on the sources of the Depression with an attempt to present, for the general reader, a consensus account of the economic mechanisms involved. Deflationary forces originating in the real economy, and exacerbated by the operation of the international gold standard, were seen as inducing US policy actions that promoted the Wall Street boom. Supportive of modern writing on inter-war monetary arrangements, Cole's account suggests that structural issues in the emergence of demand deficiency, and the role of the market crash in the subsequent slump, have been under-emphasized in recent research.
AB - Exploiting a neglected account of earlier macroeconomic thinking, the present study addresses continuing controversies over the revolutionary status of Keynes’ General Theory, and the origins of the Great Depression that inspired it. Although G.D.H. Cole's reputation as a labour historian endures, his popular writings on economics are no longer influential. Among these works, a 1932 volume combined Cole's historical perspective on the sources of the Depression with an attempt to present, for the general reader, a consensus account of the economic mechanisms involved. Deflationary forces originating in the real economy, and exacerbated by the operation of the international gold standard, were seen as inducing US policy actions that promoted the Wall Street boom. Supportive of modern writing on inter-war monetary arrangements, Cole's account suggests that structural issues in the emergence of demand deficiency, and the role of the market crash in the subsequent slump, have been under-emphasized in recent research.
U2 - 10.1093/oep/gpn025
DO - 10.1093/oep/gpn025
M3 - Journal article
VL - 61
SP - 415
EP - 439
JO - Oxford Economic Papers
JF - Oxford Economic Papers
SN - 0030-7653
IS - 3
ER -