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Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 7, Number 2—Spring 1993—Pages 41-59 Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s
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@MISC{Margo_journalof,
author = {Robert A. Margo},
title = {Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 7, Number 2—Spring 1993—Pages 41-59 Employment and Unemployment in the 1930s},
year = {}
}
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Abstract
The Great Depression is to economics what the Big Bang is to physics. Asan event, the Depression is largely synonymous with the birth ofmodern macroeconomics, and it continues to haunt successive genera-tions of economists. With respect to labor and labor markets, these facts evidently include wage rigidity, persistently high unemployment rates, and long-term joblessness. Traditionally, aggregate time series have provided the econometric grist for distinguishing explanations of the Great Depression. Recent research on labor markets in the 1930s, however, has shifted attention from aggregate to disaggregate time series and towards microeconomic evidence. This shift in focus is motivated by two factors. First, disaggregated data provide many more degrees of freedom than the decade or so of annual observations associated with the depression, and thus may prove helpful in distinguishing macroeco-nomic explanations. Second, disaggregation has revealed aspects of economic behavior hidden in the time series that may be essential to their proper interpretation and, in any case, are worthy of study in their own right. Although the substantive findings of recent research are too new to judge their permanent significance, I believe that the shift towards disaggregated analysis is an important contribution. The paper begins by reviewing the conventional statistics of the United States labor market during the Great Depression and the paradigms to explain them. It then turns to recent studies of employment and unemployment using disaggregated data of various types. The paper concludes with discussions of
Keyphrases
economic perspective volume page 41-59 employment great depression recent research time series labor market united state labor market aggregate time series successive genera-tions proper interpretation shift towards macroeco-nomic explanation wage rigidity towards microeconomic evidence various type birth ofmodern macroeconomics economic behavior important contribution asan event big bang high unemployment rate econometric grist conventional statistic permanent significance annual observation recent study long-term joblessness substantive finding
