We compile a historical dataset covering nearly 40 years of booms and busts in the commodity terms of trade of over 150 countries. We discuss the characteristics of these events and their effects on macroeconomic performance and, in particular, compare the most recent commodity-price cycle with...

Drawing on recent business cycle research on the Great Depression, we return to an argument we advanced in a 1996 article in the Journal of Monetary Economics - the argument that features of the Hawley-Smoot tariffs could have done more to decrease economic activity than is customarily believed,...