A Grande Depressão na perspectiva de hoje

Lessons of the 1930s

There could be trouble ahead

In 2008 the world dodged a second Depression by avoiding the mistakes that led to the first. But there are further lessons to be learned for both Europe and America

“YOU’RE right, we did it,” Ben Bernanke told Milton Friedman in a speech celebrating the Nobel laureate’s 90th birthday in 2002. He was referring to Mr Friedman’s conclusion that central bankers were responsible for much of the suffering in the Depression. “But thanks to you,” the future chairman of the Federal Reserve continued, “we won’t do it again.” Nine years later Mr Bernanke’s peers are congratulating themselves for delivering on that promise. “We prevented a Great Depression,” the Bank of England’s governor, Mervyn King, told the Daily Telegraph in March this year.
The shock that hit the world economy in 2008 was on a par with that which launched the Depression. In the 12 months following the economic peak in 2008, industrial production fell by as much as it did in the first year of the Depression. Equity prices and global trade fell more. Yet this time no depression followed. Although world industrial output dropped by 13% from peak to trough in what was definitely a deep recession, it fell by nearly 40% in the 1930s. American and European unemployment rates rose to barely more than 10% in the recent crisis; they are estimated to have topped 25% in the 1930s. This remarkable difference in outcomes owes a lot to lessons learned from the Depression.
Debate continues as to what made the Depression so long and deep. Some economists emphasise structural factors such as labour costs. Amity Shlaes, an economic historian, argues that “government intervention helped make the Depression Great.” She notes that President Franklin Roosevelt criminalised farmers who sold chickens too cheaply and “generated more paper than the entire legislative output of the federal government since 1789”.
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