Title: Alexander J. Field . A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth . (Yale Series in Economic and Financial History.) New Haven: Yale University Press. 2011. Pp. ix, 387. $45.00.
Abstract: Modern economic history, with its emphasis on rigorous quantitative methods, has moved almost entirely out of history departments into economics departments. The primary challenge for the cliometrician writing a book is to set aside the scientific prose and methodological focus that characterize the Journal of Economic History and to craft instead a compelling narrative or at least an arresting analysis. In this book, beginning with its provocatively Maoist title, Alexander J. Field offers the latter. He argues that the Great Depression years of the 1930s—not the war years of the 1940s—provided the necessary foundation for the postwar boom. Furthermore, he contends that the apparently stagnant years of the Depression were the “most technologically progressive decade of the century” (p. 15). Field's argument rests on measuring total factor productivity (TFP). When economic outputs and inputs are accounted for, and inputs remain unchanged but output goes up, the increase can be attributed to TFP because of innovation and technological improvement. Field explains that from 1929 to 1941, total hours worked in the U.S. private non-farm economy stayed basically the same. Although capital input had declined, output was from thirty-three to forty percent higher. Field identifies this change as an indication of improvement in TFP. Field writes, “this empirical observation is one of the key findings of the book” (p. 7).
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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