Is there a silver lining to Depression? This paper examines one instance where economic downturn appears to have given a permanent boost to productivity: the U.S. railroad industry during the Depression

The cohorts of women born at the turn of the 20th century increased markedly their participation in the labor market when older. These are the first cohorts who worked after their childbearing years. In this paper, we document a link between their work behavior and the Great Depression. We show...

We present cross-country evidence that a country's macroeconomic volatility, measured either by the standard deviation of output growth or the occurrence of trend-growth breaks, is significantly affected by the country's historical variables. In particular, countries with longer histories of...

There is a growing literature comparing the current financial crisis or Great Recession to the worst economic crisis of capitalism, the Great Depression. However, the role of rising income inequality, which has risen dramatically before both crises, is rarely discussed. In this paper we discuss...

This paper shows how policy announcements can be used to manage expectations and have a role as a policy tool. Using regional variation in radio exposure, I evaluate the impact of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1935 Fireside Chat, in which he showcased the introduction of important social...

Income and home ownership both surged in the United States between 1940 and 1960. We use cross-place variation in changes in real income to assess the importance of income gains to the mid-century home ownership boom. OLS and IV estimates suggest that a large share of the overall increase in...

This paper presents evidence that firms had labor market power during the early 1930s. Using plant-level data from the Census of Manufactures between 1929 and 1935, I construct a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index of local labor market concentration at the State-Economic-Area-by-industry level. I find...

Die Corona-Pandemie dürfte in Deutschland zum stärksten Konjunktureinbruch in der Nachkriegszeit führen. Auf Basis der regelmäßigen Konjunkturumfrage des Instituts der deutschen Wirtschaft wird eine Orientierung über das Ausmaß und den Verlauf der gegenwärtigen Beeinträchtigungen von...

Die Ergebnisse der IW-Konjunkturumfrage vom Frühjahr 2022 liefern eine Einschätzung gemäß der zum Befragungszeitpunkt relevanten und erwartbaren Rahmenbedingungen für unternehmerisches Handeln. Deutliche Veränderungen dieses geoökonomischen Umfeldes - etwa durch vollständig ausfallende...