scholarly journals Nominal Wage Stickiness and Aggregate Supply in the Great Depression

10.3386/w5439 ◽  
1996 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Bernanke ◽  
Kevin Carey

1996 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 853-883 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. S. Bernanke ◽  
K. Carey


2013 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 689-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Giordano ◽  
Gustavo Piga ◽  
Giovanni Trovato

Industrial production and employment in Italy were hard hit by the Great Depression, and remained below trend until at least 1936. Few quantitative studies have been conducted on the causes of Italy's recession and slow recovery. Using monthly data, and reviving an aggregate supply model published in Bernanke and Carey [Quarterly Journal of Economics111 (1996), 853–883], we empirically test whether Italy's 1930s industrial performance could be related to the Fascist wage and price policies, which, aiming at keeping workers' real wages constant, actually raised firms' labor costs, computed as nominal wages deflated by wholesale prices, hence stalling industrial production. We find evidence of a strong countercyclicality of real wages and of nominal wage stickiness in the period 1929–1936, which would confirm our hypothesis. Trade restrictions are found to play a smaller role in hindering industrial production than previously stated in the literature, whereas we confirm the weak transmission of financial turbulence to the real economy.





Author(s):  
Robert Wuthnow

For many Americans, the Middle West is a vast unknown. This book sets out to rectify this. It shows how the region has undergone extraordinary social transformations over the past half-century and proven itself surprisingly resilient in the face of such hardships as the Great Depression and the movement of residents to other parts of the country. It examines the heartland's reinvention throughout the decades and traces the social and economic factors that have helped it to survive and prosper. The book points to the critical strength of the region's social institutions established between 1870 and 1950—the market towns, farmsteads, one-room schoolhouses, townships, rural cooperatives, and manufacturing centers that have adapted with the changing times. It focuses on farmers' struggles to recover from the Great Depression well into the 1950s, the cultural redefinition and modernization of the region's image that occurred during the 1950s and 1960s, the growth of secondary and higher education, the decline of small towns, the redeployment of agribusiness, and the rapid expansion of edge cities. Drawing arguments from extensive interviews and evidence from the towns and counties of the Midwest, the book provides a unique perspective as both an objective observer and someone who grew up there. It offers an accessible look at the humble yet strong foundations that have allowed the region to endure undiminished.



CFA Digest ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 186-188
Author(s):  
Marc L. Ross


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