Abstract
US President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal created the most dramatic peacetime expansion of government in American economic history. It established the basic structures for modern federal/state social welfare programmes, farm programmes, labour policies, regulations of many industries, and government insurance of deposits and mortgages. Roosevelt experimented with a cartel-like industrial policy that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. The emergency public works and relief programmes built a large number of roads, dams, and other public works, and employed millions of labourers. Recent studies suggest that the impact of the New Deal varied greatly by programme.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Adams, H.H. 1977. Harry Hopkins: A biography. New York: G.P. Putnam Sons.
Alexander, B., and G. Libecap. 2000. The effect of cost heterogeneity in the success and failure of the New Deal’s agricultural and industrial programs. Explorations in Economic History 37: 370–400.
Alston, L., and J. Ferrie. 1999. Southern paternalism and the American welfare state. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Baicker, K., C. Goldin, and L. Katz. 1998. A distinctive system: Origins and impact of U.S. unemployment compensation. In The defining moment: The Great Depression and the American economy in the twentieth century, ed. M. Bordo, C. Goldin, and E.N. White. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Barber, W.J. 1996. Designs within disorder: Franklin D. Roosevelt, the economists, and the shaping of American economic policy, 1933–1945. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bellush, B. 1975. The failure of the NRA. New York: Norton.
Bordo, M., C. Goldin, and E.N. White, eds. 1998. The defining moment: The Great Depression and the American economy in the twentieth century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Braeman, J., R.H. Bremner, and D. Brody, eds. 1975. The New Deal. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
Brown, E.C. 1956. Fiscal policy in the ‘thirties: A reappraisal. American Economic Review 46: 857–879.
Calomiris, C., and E.N. White. 2000. The origins of federal deposit insurance. In U.S. bank deregulation in historical perspective, ed. C. Calomiris. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chari, V.V., P. Kehoe, and E.R. McGrattan. 2005. Spectral methods in business cycle accounting. Revista de Economia 12: 5–18.
Cole, H., and L. Ohanian. 2004. New Deal policies and the persistence of the Great Depression: A general equilibrium analysis. Journal of Political Economy 112: 779–816.
Couch, J., and W. Shughart III. 1998. The political economy of the New Deal. New York: Edward Elgar.
Darby, M.R. 1976. Three and a half million US employees have been mislaid: Or, an explanation of unemployment, 1934–1941. Journal of Political Economy 84: 1–16.
Dubofksy, M., ed. 1992. The New Deal: Conflicting interpretations and shifting perspectives. New York: Garland Publishers.
Eichengreen, B. 1992. Golden fetters: The gold standard and the depression, 1919–1939. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fishback, P., H. Haines, and S. Kantor. 2001. The impact of the New Deal on black and white infant mortality in the South. Explorations in Economic History 38: 93–122.
Fishback, P., J.J. Wallis, and S. Kantor. 2003. Can the New Deal’s three R’s be rehabilitated? A program-by-program, county-by-county analysis. Explorations in Economic History 40: 278–307.
Fishback, P., W. Horrace, and S. Kantor. 2005. The impact of New Deal expenditures on local economic activity: An examination of retail sales, 1929–1939. Journal of Economic History 65: 36–71.
Fishback, P., W. Horrace, and S. Kantor. 2006. Do federal programs affect internal migration? The impact of New Deal expenditures on mobility during the Great Depression. Explorations in Economic History 43: 179–222.
Fishback, P., R. Higgs, G. Libecap, J.W. Wallis, S. Engerman, J. Hummel, S. LaCroix, R. Margo, R. McGuire, R. Sylla, L. Alston, J. Ferrie, M. Guglielmo, E.C. Pasour, R. Rucker, and W. Troesken. 2007a. Government and the American economy: A new history. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fishback, P., H. Haines, and S. Kantor. 2007b. Births, deaths, and New Deal relief during the Great Depression. Review of Economics and Statistics 89: 1–14.
Fleck, R. 1999a. The marginal effect of New Deal relief work on county-level unemployment statistics. Journal of Economic History 59: 659–687.
Fleck, R. 1999b. The value of the vote: A model and test of the effects of turnout on distributive policy. Economic Inquiry 37: 609–623.
Fleck, R. 2004. Democratic opposition to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938: Reply to Seltzer. Journal of Economic History 62: 231–235.
Freeman, R. 1998. Spurts in union growth: Defining moments and social processes. In The defining moment: The Great Depression and the American economy in the twentieth century, ed. M. Bordo, C. Goldin, and E.N. White. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Friedman, M., and A. Schwartz. 1963. A monetary history of the United States, 1867–1960. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hamby, A., ed. 1969. The New Deal: analysis and interpretation. New York: Weybright and Talley.
Hansen, Z., and G. Libecap. 2004. Small farms, externalities, and the dust bowl of the 1930s. Journal of Political Economy 112: 665–694.
Higgs, R. 1987. Crisis and leviathan: Critical episodes in the growth of American government. New York: Oxford University Press.
Higgs, R. 1997. Regime uncertainty: Why the Great Depression lasted so long and why prosperity resumed after the war. Independent Review 1: 561–590.
Irwin, D. 1998. Changes in U.S. tariffs: The role of import prices and commercial policies. American Economic Review 88: 1015–1026.
Johnson, R., S. Kantor, and P. Fishback. 2006. Striking at the roots of crime: The impact of social welfare spending on crime during the Great Depression. Working paper no. 12825. Cambridge, MA: NBER.
Kindleberger, C. 1986. The world in depression, 1929–1939, Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Margo, R. 1993. Employment and unemployment in the 1930s. Journal of Economic Perspectives 7(2): 41–59.
Mason, J. 2001. Do lenders of last resort policies matter? The effects of the reconstruction finance corporation assistance to banks during the Great Depression. Journal of Financial Services Research 20: 77–95.
Mason, J., and D. Schiffman. 2004. Too-big-to-fail, government bailouts, and managerial incentives: The case of Reconstruction Finance Corporation assistance to the railroad industry during the Great Depression. In Too-big-to fail: Policies and practices in government bailouts, ed. B.E. Gup. Westport: Greenwood Press.
Olson, J.S. 1998. Saving capitalism: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the New Deal. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Peppers, L. 1973. Full employment surplus analysis and structural change: The 1930s. Explorations in economic history 10: 197–210.
Romer, C.D. 1992. What ended the Great Depression? Journal of Economic History 52: 757–784.
Schieber, S.J., and J.B. Shoven. 1999. The real deal: The history and future of social security. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Seltzer, A.J. 1995. The political economy of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Journal of Political Economy 103: 1302–1342.
Seltzer, A.J. 1997. The effects of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 on the southern seamless hosiery and lumber industries. Journal of Economic History 57: 396–415.
Smiley, G. 2002. Rethinking the Great Depression: A new view of its causes and consequences. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.
Stromberg, D. 2004. Radio’s impact on public spending. Quarterly Journal of Economics 119: 189–221.
Temin, P. 1989. Lessons from the Great Depression. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Temin, P., and B. Wigmore. 1990. The end of one big deflation. Explorations in Economic History 27: 483–502.
Wallis, J.J. 1998. The political economy of New Deal spending revisited, again: With and without Nevada. Explorations in Economic History 35: 140–170.
Wallis, J.J., and D.K. Benjamin. 1981. Public relief and private employment in the Great Depression. Journal of Economic History 41: 97–102.
Wallis, J.J., and D.K. Benjamin. 1989. Private employment and public relief during the Great Depression. Working paper, Department of Economics, University of Maryland.
Wallis, J.J., P. Fishback, and S. Kantor. 2006. Politics, relief, and reform: Roosevelt’s efforts to control corruption and manipulation during the New Deal. In Corruption and reform, ed. E. Glaeser and C. Goldin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Whatley, W.C. 1983. Labor for the picking: The New Deal in the South. Journal of Economic History 43: 905–929.
Wright, G. 1974. The political economy of New Deal spending: An econometric analysis. Review of Economics and Statistics 56: 30–38.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Fishback, P.V. (2018). New Deal. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2554
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_2554
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences