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The Great Depression began in August 1929, when the United States economy first went into an economic recession. Although the country spent two months with declining GDP, it was not until the Wall Street Crash in October, 1929 that the effects of a declining economy were felt, and a major worldwide economic downturn ensued. The market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth and personal advancement. Although its causes are still uncertain and controversial, the net effect was a sudden and general loss of confidence in the economic future.〔(John Steele Gordon ) "10 Moments That Made American Business," ''American Heritage'', February/March 2007.〕 The usual explanations include numerous factors, especially high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that permitted overoptimistic loans by banks and investors, and the lack of high-growth new industries,〔Radio was a growth industry, but far smaller than the automobile and electric power industries that were growth engines before 1929.〕 all interacting to create a downward economic spiral of reduced spending, falling confidence, and lowered production.〔Lester Chandler (1970).〕 Industries that suffered the most included construction, agriculture as dust-bowl conditions persisted in the agricultural heartland, shipping, mining, and logging as well as durable goods like automobiles and appliances that could be postponed. The economy reached bottom in the winter of 1932–33; then came four years of very rapid growth until 1937, when the Recession of 1937 brought back 1934 levels of unemployment.〔Chandler (1970); Jensen (1989); Mitchell (1964)〕 The Depression caused major political changes in America. Three years into the depression, Herbert Hoover lost the 1932 presidential election to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in a landslide. Roosevelt's economic recovery plan, the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief, recovery and reform, and brought about a major realignment of American politics. The Depression also resulted in an increase of emigration of people to other countries for the first time in American history. For example, some immigrants went back to their native countries, and some native US citizens went to Canada, Australia, and South Africa. It also resulted in the mass migration of people from badly hit areas in the Great Plains and the South to places such as California and the North, respectively (see Okies and the Great Migration of African Americans).〔(The Migrant Experience ). Memory.loc.gov (1998-04-06). Retrieved on 2013-07-14.〕〔(American Exodus The Dust Bowl Mi ). Faculty.washington.edu. Retrieved on 2013-07-14.〕 Racial tensions also increased during this time. By the 1940s immigration had returned to normal, and emigration declined. A well-known example of an emigrant was Frank McCourt, who went to Ireland, as recounted in his book Angela's Ashes. The memory of the Depression also shaped modern theories of economics and resulted in many changes in how the government dealt with economic downturns, such as the use of stimulus packages, Keynesian economics, and Social Security. It also shaped modern American literature, resulting in famous novels such as John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" and "Of Mice and Men". ==Causes== (詳細はclassical economics, monetarist, Keynesian, Austrian Economics and neoclassical economic theory, which focuses on the macroeconomic effects of money supply, including Mass production and consumption. Second, there are structural theories, including those of institutional economics, that point to underconsumption and over-investment (economic bubble), or to malfeasance by bankers and industrialists.〔 There are multiple originating issues: what factors set off the first downturn in 1929, what structural weaknesses and specific events turned it into a major depression, how the downturn spread from country to country, and why the economic recovery was so prolonged.〔Bordo, Goldin, and White , eds., ''The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century'' (1998).〕 Banks began to fail in October 1930 (one year after the crash) when farmers defaulted on loans. There was no federal deposit insurance during that time as bank failures were considered quite common. This worried depositors that they might have a chance of losing all their savings, therefore, people started to withdraw money and changed it into currency. As deposits taken out from the bank increased, the money supply decreased because the money multiplier worked in reverse, forcing banks to liquidate assets (such as call in loans rather than create new loans.)〔Robert Fuller, "Phantom of Fear" The Banking Panic of 1933 (2012) 241–42 fn. 45〕 This caused the money supply to shrink and the economy to contract and a significant decrease in aggregate investment. The decreased money supply further aggravated price deflation, putting further pressure on already struggling businesses. The US government's commitment to the gold standard prevented it from engaging in expansionary monetary policy. High interest rates needed to be maintained, in order to attract international investors who bought foreign assets with gold. However, the high interest also inhibited domestic business borrowing. Economists dispute how much weight to give the stock market crash of October 1929. According to Milton Friedman, "the stock market in 1929 played a role in the initial depression." It clearly changed sentiment about and expectations of the future, shifting the outlook from very positive to negative, with a dampening effect on investment and entrepreneurship, but some feel that an increase in interest rates by the Federal government could have also caused the slow steps into the downturn towards the Great Depression.〔Randall E. Parker, ed. ''Reflections on the Great Depression'' (2002) interviews with 11 leading economists〕 Thomas Sowell, on the other hand, notes that the rise in unemployment had peaked at 9% two months after the crash, and had fallen to 6.3% by June – he blames the later unemployment rate on the tariffs that Hoover passed against the advice of economists in that same month, and says that six months after their implementation unemployment rose to the double digit figures that characterized that decade.〔(Washingtonexaminer.com )〕 Recent research has pointed to the effects of capital taxation on property, capital stock, excess profits, undistributed profits, and dividends on the severity of the Great Depression, noting such taxation's role in significant declines in investment and equity values and nontrivial declines in gross domestic product and hours of work.〔(Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, ''Capital Taxation During the U.S. Great Depression'', October 2010 )〕 The US interest rates were also affected by France's decision to raise their interest rates to attract gold to their vaults. In theory, the U.S. would have two potential responses to that: Allow the exchange rate to adjust, or increase their own interest rates to maintain the gold standard. At the time, the U.S. was pegged to the gold standard. Therefore, Americans converted their dollars into francs to buy more French assets, the demand for the U.S. dollar fell, and the exchange rate increased. The only thing the US could do to get back into equilibrium was increase their interest rates. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Great Depression in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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