The Depression

Abstract

UNFORTUNATELY, statistical inadequacies make it impossible to establish with precision the cyclical peaks in all economies. One source shows that Germany peaked in April 1929, Britain in June, and the United States in July, with France remaining immune until March 1930 [Burns and Mitchell]. Using different indicators and widening the geographical field, the Brookings Institution demonstrates that a depression had begun in Australia and the Dutch East Indies in 1927, and that by the end of 1928 Germany, Finland and Brazil had begun to experience economic decline, followed by Poland, Canada and Argentina by mid 1929, the United States, Belgium and Italy in the third quarter of 1929, and Britain and Japan in the first quarter of 1930. The Brookings study shows that several countries were in economic decline before the middle of 1929, and that others were poised upon the brink of depression at that time. This section will begin with an analysis of the most important of those economies, the United States economy, during the slump, and will then consider the reasons for the onset of the great depression in manufacturing and agricultural countries throughout the world.