IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3899.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Marshall Plan: History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program

Author

Listed:
  • J. Bradford De Long
  • Barry Eichengreen

Abstract

The post-World War II reconstruction of Western Europe was one of the greatest economic policy and foreign policy successes of this century. "Folk wisdom" assigns a major role in successful reconstruction to the Marshall Plan: the program that transferred some $13 billion to Europe in the years 1948-51. We examine the economic effects of the Marshall Plan, and find that it was not large enough to have significantly accelerated recovery by financing investment, aiding the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure, or easing commodity bottlenecks. We argue, however, that the Marshall Plan did play a major role in setting the stage for post-World War II Western Europe's rapid growth. The conditions attached to Marshall Plan aid pushed European political economy in a direction that left its post World War II "mixed economies" with more "market" and less "controls" in the mix.

Suggested Citation

  • J. Bradford De Long & Barry Eichengreen, 1991. "The Marshall Plan: History's Most Successful Structural Adjustment Program," NBER Working Papers 3899, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3899
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3899.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alessandra Casella & Barry Eichengreen, 1991. "Halting Inflation in Italy and France After World War II," NBER Working Papers 3852, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Glyn, Andrew & Hughes, Alan & Lipietz, Alan & Sigh, Ajit, "undated". "The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age," WIDER Working Papers 295573, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Wojeiech Kostrzewa & Peter Nunnenkamp & Holger Schmieding, 1990. "A Marshall Plan for Middle and Eastern Europe," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(1), pages 27-49, March.
    4. Broadberry, S N, 1994. "Why was Unemployment in Postwar Britain So Low?," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 241-261, July.
    5. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    6. Maier, Charles S., 1977. "The politics of productivity: foundations of American international economic policy after World War II," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 607-633, October.
    7. Dumke, Rolf H, 1990. "Reassessing the Wirtschaftswunder: Reconstruction and Postwar Growth in West Germany in an International Context," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(4), pages 451-491, Special I.
    8. Holtfrerich, Carl-Ludwig, 1986. "U.S. capital exports to Germany 1919-1923 compared to 1924-1929," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 1-32, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. Bradford De Long & Barry Eichengreen, "undated". "The Marshall Plan as a Structural Adjustment Programme," J. Bradford De Long's Working Papers _112, University of California at Berkeley, Economics Department.
    2. Seghezza, Elena & Morelli, Pierluigi, 2014. "Conflict inflation and delayed stabilization," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 39(PA), pages 171-184.
    3. Reiner Eichenberger & David Stadelmann, 2009. "Consequences of Debt Capitalization: Property Ownership and Debt/Tax Choice," CREMA Working Paper Series 2009-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    4. van de Klundert, T.C.M.J. & Smulders, J.A., 1991. "Reconstructing growth theory : A survey," Other publications TiSEM 19355c51-17eb-4d5d-aa66-b, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, "undated". "Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes: What are the Stylized Facts?," Working Papers 189, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    6. Ajit Singh, 2003. "Capital account liberalisation, free long-term capital flows, financial crises and economic development," Chapters, in: Philip Arestis & Michelle Baddeley & John S.L. McCombie (ed.), Globalisation, Regionalism and Economic Activity, chapter 1, pages 15-46, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Saint-Paul, Gilles, 2019. "From Microeconomic Favoritism to Macroeconomic Populism," CEPR Discussion Papers 13434, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Eichengreen, Barry, 1993. "A Marshall Plan for the East: Options for 1993," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers 233185, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Economics.
    9. Bruno, Michael & Ravallion, Martin & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "Equity and growth in developing countries : old and new perspectives on the policy issues," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1563, The World Bank.
    10. Gerring, John & Thacker, Strom C. & Lu, Yuan & Huang, Wei, 2015. "Does Diversity Impair Human Development? A Multi-Level Test of the Diversity Debit Hypothesis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 166-188.
    11. Joshua Aizenman & Yothin Jinjarak, 2012. "Income Inequality, Tax Base and Sovereign Spreads," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 68(4), pages 431-444, December.
    12. Bernardo Bortolotti & Valentina Milella, 2006. "Privatization in Western Europe Stylized Facts, Outcomes, and Open Issues," Working Papers 2006.124, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    13. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    14. Urs Fischbacher & Simeon Schudy, 2014. "Reciprocity and resistance to comprehensive reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 411-428, September.
    15. Michał Mackiewicz, 2006. "Przyczyny deficytu finansów publicznych w świetle nowej ekonomii politycznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 1-22.
    16. Lora, Eduardo, 2008. "El futuro de los pactos fiscales en América Latina," Coediciones, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), number 1310.
    17. Pitlik, Hans & Wirth, Steffen, 2003. "Do crises promote the extent of economic liberalization?: an empirical test," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 565-581, September.
    18. Deerfield, Amanda & Elert, Niklas, 2022. "Entrepreneurship and Regulatory Voids: The Case of Ridesharing," Working Paper Series 1426, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    19. Prato, Carlo & Wolton, Stephane, 2018. "Rational ignorance, populism, and reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 119-135.
    20. Joshua Aizenman & Sang‐Seung Yi, 1998. "Controlled Openness and Foreign Direct Investment," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(1), pages 1-10, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order and Integration

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3899. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.