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International Contagion

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Manias, Panics and Crashes

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Abstract

A widespread historical pastime is fixing blame for a crisis geographically. President Hoover, for example, insisted that Europe was responsible for the 1929 depression. He was prepared to admit some fault in the United States, especially stock market speculation, but blamed the world as a whole for overproduction in wheat, rubber, coffee, sugar, silver, zinc, and, to some extent, cotton. Primarily, however, the fault belonged to Europe, with its cartels, and to “European statesmen [who] did not have the courage to face these issues.”1 Friedman and Schwartz, on the other hand, observe that while the gold-exchange standard rendered the international financial system vulnerable, the crisis originated in the United States. The initial climactic event—the stock market crash—was American, and the series of developments that started the stock of money downward in late 1930 was predominantly domestic.2

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Notes

8. International Contagion

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Authors
  1. Charles P. Kindleberger
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  2. Peter L. Bernstein
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© 2000 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Kindleberger, C.P., Bernstein, P.L. (2000). International Contagion. In: Manias, Panics and Crashes. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230536753_8

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