As a result of the current global financial crisis, in 2009 the world economy is likely to experience the largest contraction since World War II and the unemployment rate to reach historical highs in many countries. The fact that the current global crisis is originated from the U.S. and followed another intensive wave of globalization, has led to an unprecedented public interest towards the Great Depression of 1929-1933. These parallels between the two episodes further fueled the fears that the current crisis would deepen and last a couple of years, similar to the Great Depression. The aim of this paper is to discuss the validity of these worries by studying the root causes of the current crisis in the light of the causes of the Great Depression as laid out by the related literature. The paper concludes that the factors that deepen and widen the Great Depression are not valid anymore to a great extent. Together with the decisions taken by the leaders of the world's largest economies at the London Summit in April, the conclusions of the paper keep the hope that the current global crisis will not turn into a severe global depression.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Length: 41 pages Date of creation: Jul 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:koc:wpaper:0904
Contact details of provider: Postal: College of Administrative Sciences and Economics, Koç, University, İstinye, 80860 İstanbul Phone: (90+212)-229-3006 x464 Fax: (90+212)-229-1971 Email: Web page: http://erf.ku.edu.tr More information through EDIRC
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Muge Adalet).
Find related papers by JEL classification: N72 - Economic History - - Economic History: Transport, International and Domestic Trade, Energy, and Other Services - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913- F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: