Data and code for: The Ends of 27 Big Depressions

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Martin Ellison, University of Oxford; Sang Seok Lee, Bilkent University; Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke, NYU Abu Dhabi

Version: View help for Version V1

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Dataset			09/28/2023 04:51:AM
Matlab			09/28/2023 04:40:AM
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README.pdf	application/pdf	436.4 KB	09/28/2023 01:41:AM
datafolders.zip	application/zip	65.5 MB	09/28/2023 12:26:AM

Project Citation:

Ellison, Martin, Lee, Sang Seok, and Hjortshøj O’Rourke, Kevin . Data and code for: The Ends of 27 Big Depressions. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2023. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2023-12-12. https://doi.org/10.3886/E191743V1

Project Description

Summary: How did countries recover from the Great Depression? In this paper, we explore the argument that leaving the gold standard helped by boosting inflationary expectations, lowering real interest rates, and stimulating interest-sensitive expenditures. We do so for a sample of 27 countries, using modern nowcasting methods and a new dataset containing more than 230,000 monthly and quarterly observations for over 1,500 variables. In those cases where the departure from gold happened on well-defined dates, inflationary expectations clearly rose in the wake of departure. IV, diff-in-diff, and synthetic matching techniques suggest that the relationship is causal.

Funding Sources: European Union Seventh Framework Programme (249546)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: Great Depression; Inflation expectations; Gold standard; Commodity futures; Interwar high frequency data

JEL Classification:
E65 Studies of Particular Policy Episodes
N10 Economic History: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations: General, International, or Comparative

Time Period(s): 1/1919 – 12/1936 (January 1919 - December 1936)

Data Type(s): aggregate data; event/transaction data

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Published Versions

V1 [2023-12-12]

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