"During the New Deal the Roosevelt Administration dramatically expanded relief spending to combat extraordinarily high rates of unemployment. We examine the dynamic relationships between relief spending and local private labor markets using a new panel data set of monthly relief, private...

During the Great Depression, as in the modern era, in-migrants were accused of taking jobs and crowding relief rolls. Unlike today, the targets of protest during the Depression were typically American citizens from other parts of the country, rather than the foreign born. Using aggregate data on...

"If there was any time to expect a large peace-time multiplier effect from federal spending in the states, it would have been during the period from 1930 through 1940 when unemployment rates never fell below 10 percent and there was ample idle capacity. We develop an annual panel data set for...