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Economic Stagnation in Europe in the Interwar Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Douglas F. Dowd
Douglas F. Dowd
Affiliation:
Cornell University
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Extract

It would not seem to be stretching matters unduly to assert that widespread agreement could be found on the following related propositions: (1) that the social crises and upheavals in Europe between the two World Wars, and the wars themselves, were not aberrations but are, rather, susceptible of a systematic, coherent explanation; (2) that such an explanation, though it would rest on a myriad of social relationships and processes, would place economic affairs at or near the center of Europe's troubles; and (3) that an understanding of European economic difficulties in the period might be efficiently achieved through an analysis of the factors stimulating and retarding the rate of economic growth of interwar Europe—or, that any thorough explanation would have to include such an analysis.

Type
Notes and Review Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , September 1955 , pp. 273 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1955

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References

1 Growth and Stagnation in the European Economy. By Svennilson, Ingvar. Geneva: United Nations, Economic Commission for Europe, 1954. Pp. xvi, 342, $4.50.Google Scholar

2 Pirenne, Henri, “The Stages in the Social History of Capitalism,” American Historical Review, XIX (April 1914), 494–515Google Scholar ; Postan, M. M., “Recent Trends in the Accumulation of Capital,” Economic History Review, VI (October 1935), 1–12Google Scholar ; , Veblen, most generally, in his Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution (New York: The Viking Press, 1946), especially chaps. 4–8Google Scholar ; Marx, most briefly, in the preface to his Critique of Political Economy.

3 W. A. Lewis notes that between 1929 and 1937, while the French population grew slowly, the numbers engaged in industry diminished by 21 per cent, as the work week was also being reduced. By 1937 full employment had been attained, but industrial production was at only 82 per cent of the 1929 level. Part of the explanation lies in increased leisure for industrial workers; more interesting and relevant is the return to rural pursuits.– Economic Survey, 1919-1939 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1949), p. 102Google Scholar.

4 Vies of National Income in Peace and War (“Occasional Paper No. 6”) (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1942).Google Scholar

5 “The Passing of National Frontiers,” reprinted in Essays in Our Changing Order, by Thorstein Veblen (New York: The Viking Press, 1943), p. 387.Google Scholar

6 “The Status of Stagnation Theory–Part I,” Southern Economic Journal, XV (October 1948), 191–204Google Scholar , and “The Status of Stagnation Theory–Part II,” ibid., XV (January 1949), 280–302Google Scholar.

7 The Great Transformation (New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1944), p. 249.Google ScholarPubMed