The U.S. economy entered the 1920s with a robust job market and high inflation but fell into a recession following the Federal Reserve's discount rate hikes to tame inflation. Using a newly constructed data set, we study labor market dynamics during this period. We find that labor markets were...

The behaviors of labor markets between the end of World War I and the recession of 1920-1921 can provide important lessons for the economic conditions today. The U.S. economy entered the 1920s with a robust job market and high inflation but fell into a recession following the Federal Reserve’s...