IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/afc/cliome/v2y2008i1p5-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The German crisis of 1931: evidence and tradition

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Temin

    (Department of Economics, MIT, Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02141, USA)

Abstract

The German currency was controlled and German banks closed in July 1931. Does it matter whether poor currency management or poor banking practice led to the crisis? This paper argues that it does—because the choice indicates which decisions led to the Great Depression. This issue is so emotional that evidence has been subordinated to tradition in recent academic discussion. Data and economic analysis indicate clearly that the crisis originated in the currency, not the banks. The most useful model for this crisis is Krugman’s first generation model of financial crises.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Temin, 2008. "The German crisis of 1931: evidence and tradition," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 2(1), pages 5-17, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:afc:cliome:v:2:y:2008:i:1:p:5-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/er72n06k49k76275/fulltext.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.springerlink.com/content/er72n06k49k76275/fulltext.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patrice Baubeau & Eric Monnet & Angelo Riva & Stefano Ungaro, 2021. "Flight‐to‐safety and the credit crunch: a new history of the banking crises in France during the Great Depression," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 74(1), pages 223-250, February.
    2. Xavier De Scheemaekere & Kim Oosterlinck & Ariane Szafarz, 2014. "Issues in Identifying Economic Crises: Insights from History," Working Papers CEB 14-014, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Richardson, Gary & Van Horn, Patrick, 2018. "In the eye of a Storm: Manhattan's money center banks during the international financial crisis of 1931," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 71-94.
    4. Macher, Flora, 2018. "The Austrian banking crisis of 1931: one bad apple spoils the whole bunch," Economic History Working Papers 87151, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    5. Doerr, Sebastian & Gissler, Stefan & Peydró, José-Luis & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2022. "Financial crises and political radicalization: How failing banks paved Hitler’s path to power," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 77(6), pages 3339-3372.
    6. Kristian Blickle & Markus Brunnermeier & Stephan Luck, 2020. "Micro-evidence from a System-wide Financial Meltdown: The German Crisis of 1931," Working Papers 275, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    7. Sebastian Doerr & Stefan Gissler & José-Luis Peydró & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2018. "From finance to fascism," Economics Working Papers 1651, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2020.
    8. Kristian Blickle & Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stephan Luck, 2022. "Who Can Tell Which Banks Will Fail?," NBER Working Papers 29753, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Claude DIEBOLT & Antoine PARENT & Jamel TRABELSI, 2012. "Revisiting the 1929 Crisis : Was the Fed Pre-Keynesian ? New Lessons from the Past," Historical Social Research (Section 'Cliometrics'), Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 37(2), pages 280-297.
    10. Andrea Papadia & Claudio A. Schioppa, 2024. "Foreign Debt, Capital Controls, and Secondary Markets: Theory and Evidence from Nazi Germany," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 132(6), pages 2074-2112.
    11. Reinhart, Carmen M. & Rogoff, Kenneth S., 2013. "Banking crises: An equal opportunity menace," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4557-4573.
    12. Eichengreen, Barry & Irwin, Douglas A., 2010. "The Slide to Protectionism in the Great Depression: Who Succumbed and Why?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(4), pages 871-897, December.
    13. Stefan Gissler, 2015. "Slow capital, fast prices: Shocks to funding liquidity and stock price reversals," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-43, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Jamilov, Rustam & König, Tobias & Müller, Karsten & Saidi, Farzad, 2024. "Two Centuries of Systemic Bank Runs," CEPR Discussion Papers 19382, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Albrecht Ritschl & Samad Sarferaz, 2014. "Currency Versus Banking In The Financial Crisis Of 1931," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 55(2), pages 349-373, May.
    16. Claude Diebolt & Antoine Parent & Jamel Trabelsi, 2010. "Expansionary Monetary Policy Under Liquidity Trap: 2009 in Light of 1929. A Counterfactual Analysis," Working Papers 10-07, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    17. Flora Macher, 2015. "Did monetary forces cause the Hungarian crises of 1931?," Working Papers 0086, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    18. Ho, Tai-kuang & Yeh, Kuo-chun, 2019. "Were capital flows the culprit in the Weimar economic crisis?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Great depression; Currency crises; German crisis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-

    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:afc:cliome:v:2:y:2008:i:1:p:5-17. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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/afcccea.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.