This paper entertains the notion that disturbances on the demand side play a central role in our understanding of the Great Depression. In fact, from Euler equation residuals we are able to identify a series of unusually large negative demand shocks that appeared to have hit the U. S. economy...

"This paper shows that economic fluctuations can be largely demand-driven. In particular, the stylized open-economy business cycle regularities documented by Feldstein and Horioka (1980) and Backus, Kehoe and Kydland (JPE 1992) can be explained by the standard general equilibrium theory if...