Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The economics of World War I: an overview
- 2 The pity of peace: Germany's economy at war, 1914–1918 and beyond
- 3 Austria-Hungary's economy in World War I
- 4 The Ottoman economy in World War I
- 5 Between the devil and the deep blue sea: the Dutch economy during World War I
- 6 Was the Great War a watershed? The economics of World War I in France
- 7 The United Kingdom during World War I: business as usual?
- 8 Poor Russia, poor show: mobilising a backward economy for war, 1914–1917
- 9 Italy at war, 1915–1918
- 10 Until it's over, over there: the US economy in World War I
- Index
- References
10 - Until it's over, over there: the US economy in World War I
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 July 2009
By
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The economics of World War I: an overview
- 2 The pity of peace: Germany's economy at war, 1914–1918 and beyond
- 3 Austria-Hungary's economy in World War I
- 4 The Ottoman economy in World War I
- 5 Between the devil and the deep blue sea: the Dutch economy during World War I
- 6 Was the Great War a watershed? The economics of World War I in France
- 7 The United Kingdom during World War I: business as usual?
- 8 Poor Russia, poor show: mobilising a backward economy for war, 1914–1917
- 9 Italy at war, 1915–1918
- 10 Until it's over, over there: the US economy in World War I
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
This chapter re-examines the financial and economic history of the United States during World War I. It focuses on economic policy: on what policy makers did, and equally important on what conclusions they drew from the short and confused experience of America's involvement in World War I. The first section, on the war boom, presents the chronology of American involvement, and contrasts the World War I expansion with previous expansions. (A list of key dates is contained in the appendix to this chapter.) The second section describes how resources were mobilised and allocated to the war sector. The third section on the financing of the war, is divided into three parts: monetary policy, fiscal policy (taxes), and debt policy. The fourth section discusses the War Industries Board and other government agencies that were charged with regulating prices and production. The fifth section discusses the production of munitions. The concluding section, on the legacies of the war for the United States is divided into three parts: the costs of the war in terms of resources, the impact of the war on the role of the United States in international capital markets, and the institutional and ideological legacies of the war.
The war boom in historical perspective
The outbreak of the war in Europe in 1914 touched off a severe financial disturbance in the United States.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Economics of World War I , pp. 310 - 343Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
References
(1919), The War with Germany: a Statistical Summary, Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
and (1989), ‘The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence’, Journal of Political Economy 97(1): 38–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1987), ‘Government Spending, Interest Rates, Prices, and Budget Deficits in the United Kingdom’, Journal of Monetary Economics 20: 221–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barro, R. J.(1989), ‘The Neoclassical Approach to Fiscal Policy’, in (ed.), Modern Business Cycle Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 236–64.Google Scholar
Berry, T. S. (1988), ‘Production and Population since 1789, Revised GNP Series in Constant Dollars’, Richmond, VA: Bostwick Press.
, , , , , , , , , , , and (1919), ‘Report of the Committee on War Finance of the American Economic Association’, American Economic Review 9(1), supplement 2: 1–128.Google Scholar
Bordo, M., Edelstein, M., and Rockoff, H. (1999), ‘Was Adherence to the Gold Standard a “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval” during the Interwar Period?,’ NBER Working Paper No. w7186.
(1997), Warhogs: A History of War Profits in America, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky.Google Scholar
(1958), ‘The Demand for Currency Relative to the Total Money Supply’, Journal of Political Economy 66 (4): 303–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1970) [1931], The Costs of the World War to the American People, New York: Augustus M. Kelley.Google Scholar
(1973), The War Industries Board: Business–Government Relations during World War I, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
(1921), ‘The Railroads under Government Operation. I. The Period to the Close of 1918’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 35(2): 288–340. ‘II. From January 1, 1919, to March 1, 1920’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 36(1): 30–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorfman, J. (1970) [1931], ‘Some Documentary Notes on the Relations among J. M. Clark, N. A. L. J. Johannsen and J. M. Keynes’, in , The Costs of the World War to the American People, New York: Augustus M. Kelley, pp. 5–15.Google Scholar
Edelstein, M. (2000), ‘War and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century’, in and (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, vol. III: The Twentieth Century, New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 329–405.Google Scholar
(1960), Federal Receipts and Expenditures during Business Cycles, 1879–1958, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press for the NBER.Google Scholar
(1952), ‘Price, Income, and Monetary Changes in Three Wartime Periods’, American Economic Review 42(2), Papers and Proceedings: 612–25.Google Scholar
and (1963), A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press for the NBER.Google Scholar
and (1970), Monetary Statistics of the United States: Estimates, Sources, Methods, New York: Columbia University Press for the NBER.Google Scholar
(1987), Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
, , , and (1919), ‘Report of the Committee on War Finance: Discussion at the Richmond Meeting’, American Economic Review 9(1), supplement 2: 129–42.Google Scholar
and (2002), ‘The Annual Real and Nominal GDP for the United States, 1789 – Present’, Economic History Services, URL: http://www.eh.net/hmit/gdp/.Google Scholar
, assisted by M. R. Pech (1961), Productivity Trends in the United States, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press for the NBER.Google Scholar
(1980), Over Here: The First World War and American Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
(1967), ‘Decision For Federal Control: Wilson, McAdoo, and the Railroads, 1917’, Journal of American History 54 (3): 550–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leuchtenburg, W. E. (1964), ‘The New Deal and the Analogue of War’, in , , and (eds.), Change and Continuity in Twentieth-Century America, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.Google Scholar
(1931), Crowded Years: The Reminiscences of William G. McAdoo, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
and (1990) ‘New Monthly Index of Industrial Production, 1884–1940’, Journal of Economic History 50 (2): 321–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1903), A History of the Greenbacks: With Special Reference to the Economic Consequence of their Issue, 1862–65, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rhode, P. W. (2002), ‘Gallman's Annual Output Series for the United States, 1834–1909’, NBER Working Paper No. w8860.
(1984), Drastic Measures: A History of Wage and Price Controls in the United States, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1998a), ‘The Peace Dividend in Historical Perspective’, American Economic Review 88(2): 46–50.Google Scholar
Rockoff, H.(1998b), ‘By Way of Analogy: The Expansion of the Federal Government in the 1930s’, in , , and (eds.), The Defining Moment: The Great Depression and the American Economy in the Twentieth Century, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 125–54.Google Scholar
(1988), ‘World War I and the Postwar Depression: A Reinterpretation Based on Alternative Estimates of GNP’, Journal of Monetary Economics 22(1): 91–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1989), ‘The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered: New Estimates of Gross National Product, 1869–1908’, Journal of Political Economy 97 (1): 1–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1919), ‘Price-Fixing as Seen by a Price-Fixer’, Quarterly Journal of Economics 33(2): 205–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(1921), ‘Is Market Price Determinate?’ Quarterly Journal of Economics 35(3): 394–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
US Bureau of the Census (1960), Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1960, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
US Bureau of the Census(1975), Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.
- 10
- Cited by