The Great Debate

Economist Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College has stirred up a bit of a fuss by concluding in some academic research that it was France, not the United States, that was most to blame for The Great Depression.

Irwin's theory, in a paper posted here by the National Bureau of Economic Research, is that France created an artificial shortage of gold reserves when it increased its share from 7 percent to 27 percent between 1927 and 1932.  Because major currencies at the time were backed by gold under the Gold Standard, this put other countries under enormous deflationary pressure.

To prove his point, Irwin ran a model looking at what would have happened without the French move. The results:

Counterfactual simulations indicate that world prices would have increased slightly between 1929 and 1933, instead of declining calamitously.

All this runs counter to the traditional finger-pointing for The Great Depression, which has it that the U.S Federal Reserve tipped the world into the economic abyss by tightening monetary policy.

The title of this post is taken from two sources. One was a headline in British tabloid, The Sun, in January 1979, when then-prime minister James Callaghan denied that strike-torn Britain was in chaos. The second was the title of a 1975 album by prog rock band Supertramp that famously showed someone sunbathing amidst the grey awfulness of the declining industrial landscape.

Are we now getting blasé about the latest crisis? Not so long ago, perfectly respectable economists and financial analysts were talking about a new Great Depression. The world was on the brink, it was said. Now, though, consensus appears to be that it is all over bar the shouting. The world is safe.

Wealth managers at Barclays have gone as far as telling their clients to get over it.

– Neil Unmack and Agnes T. Crane are Reuters columnists. The views expressed are their own —

By Neil Unmack and Agnes T. Crane
When some of the most influential financial thinkers of our time failed to call one of the biggest bubbles since the Great Depression before it burst, a little skepticism about the recent run-up in stocks is a healthy antidote to the cheerleading that typically accompanies big gains.

Given the enormous size of the last bubble, the current round of inflation in financial markets perhaps should be called by another name — maybe “bubblette” would better suit the times.

- Richard Wellings is Deputy Editorial Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs. The opinions expressed are his own.-

Argentina should be an object lesson for the U.S.

A century ago, it was one of the richest countries in the world. Today, it has fallen far behind Europe and North America, after a hundred years marked by long periods of recession.

Faced with economic crisis, for example during World War I and the Great Depression, Argentina’s politicians turned to socialism. Lame-duck industries were subsidised and protected from competition, and policy was often driven by powerful vested interests such as the trade unions.

- Alan Beattie is world trade editor at the Financial Times, and author of the recent book “False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World”. He studied history at Oxford and economics at Cambridge, and worked as a Bank of England economist before joining the FT. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Those who forget history are condemned to listen to historians going on and on about it, a fate almost as bad as listening to economists doing the same. (And I write as a double agent with a foot in both camps attempting the delicate task of bringing the two together in my new book)

As we are perpetually being told, the current global financial crisis and recession is the kind of event that comes along only once or twice in a century. So now the immediacy of the panic has subsided, perhaps this is a good time to ask if we been applying the correct lessons from the past, and particularly from the 1930s, in dealing with this one.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Comparisons between the current downturn and the Great Contraction of 1929-33 have multiplied as commentators and investors have tried to forecast the recession’s likely depth and duration. But as the U.S. economy shows signs of stabilising and attention switches to future inflation the more useful comparison is actually with the 1940s.

The massive build up of highly liquid assets (cash and bank balances) during the Second World War is the closest parallel to the current escalation of bank reserves as a result of quantitative easing programmes in the United States and elsewhere around the world. The relatively modest pick up in consumer prices after the war ended may hold lessons for the outlook for inflation over the next five years.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –

Intense criticism of the Fed’s role in the financial rescue program and the decision to triple its balance sheet, including monetizing a portion of the Treasury’s debt, has forced the central bank to issue an unusual defense of its actions (http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20090323b.htm).

It attempts to placate critics by acknowledging the real risk of inflation, and marks the Fed’s first attempt to set out an “exit strategy” for ending quantitative easing and other credit programs once the crisis is safely passed.

– John Kemp is a Reuters columnist. The views expressed are his own –
For part one of this column, please click here.

The current downturn and fears about falling prices are prompting a plethora of historical comparisons with previous periods, many with the Great Depression of 1929-1933, some based on a very shaky understanding of the historical record.

HISTORICAL BUSINESS CYCLES

The attached chart provides a long-term overview of developments in both U.S. output and prices for the last century using official data published by the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. To remove some of the month-to-month volatility, the chart shows the twelve-month percent change in both series for a rolling three-month period, providing a better indication of the underlying trend (http://customers.reuters.com/d/graphics/us_business_cycle.pdf).