On Nov 12, 2007, at 8:33 AM, Dennis Perrin wrote:
> Was the Depression in the 1930s caused by Republican domestic policies
> throughout the 1920s? Or was there a global reason for the crash?
The cause of the Depression is one of the great controversies in economics. Candidates for blame include: productivity outstripping wage growth, financial speculation, debt growth, increasing income inequality, bad central bank policies (e.g., Fed tightening too much in late 20s, loosening too late after crash), the gold standard, trade wars (competitive devaluations, Smoot-Hawley), bad banking regulations (e.g., U.S. prohibition of branch banking, which left lone banks much weaker than their Canadian counterparts, which had national branching). Etc. Vulgar eclecticist that I am, I'd say all contributed.
Doug