Abstract
With these words, President Roosevelt signed the National Industrial Recovery Act on June 16, 1933, and so began an unprecedented two-year experiment in regulating the entire U.S. economy. Between June 1933 and May 1935, staggering reforms were promulgated in the quest for economic recovery and reform. Of course, other New Deal legislation, also signed during the famous “100 days,” had similar objectives.1 The NIRA promised to extract the United States from the continuing depression through cooperative action: promoting cartels to aid industry and promoting unions to aid employees. Within one year, codes of “fair competition” for 450 individual industries, covering 23 million workers, were passed. By the time the law was declared unconstitutional on May 27, 1935, over 550 codes had been passed covering almost the entire private, nonagricultural economy.2
History will probably record the NIRA as the most important and far-reaching legislation ever enacted by the American Congress.
Schlesinger (1959, p. 102)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Alchian, A. A. 1970. “Information Costs, Pricing, and Resource Unemployment.” In Microeconomic Foundations of Employment and Inflation Theory, ed. E. S. Phelps. New York: W. W. Norton.
Brown, E. C. 1956. “Fiscal Policies in the Thirties: A Reappraisal.”American Economic Review 46: 857–78.
Brunner, K., and Meltzer, A. 1963. “Predicting Velocity: Implications for Theory and Policy”. Journal of Finance 18: 319–54.
Filipetti, G., and Vaile, R. 1935. The Economic Effects of the NRA: A Regional Analysis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Friedman, M., and Schwartz, A. J. 1963. A Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, for the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Fromm, G., and Klein, L. R. 1976. “The NBER/NSF Model Comparison Seminar: An Analysis of Results.” In Econometric Model Performance, ed. L. R. Klein and E. Burmeister. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Gandolfi, A. E. 1974. “Stability of the Demand for Money during the Great Contraction—1929–1933.” Journal of Political Economy 82: 969–83.
Hawley, E. W. 1966. The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
Hickman, B. G., and Coen, R. M. 1976. An Annual Growth Model of the U.S. Economy. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Klein, L. R., and Goldberger, A. S. 1955. An Econometric Model of the United States, 1929–1952. Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Laidler, D. 1966. “The Rate of Interest and the Demand for Money: Some Empirical Evidence.” Journal of Political Economy 14: 545–55.
— 1977. The Demand for Money: Theories and Evidence. New York: Dun-Donnelley.
Lebergott, S. 1964. Manpower in Economic Growth: The American Record since 1800. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lyon, L. S., et al. 1935. The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.
Roose, K. D. 1954. The Economics of Recession and Revival. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
Schlesinger, A. M., Jr. 1969. The Coming of the New Deal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Teigen, R. 1964. “Demand and Supply Functions for Money in the United States.” Econometrica 32: 477–509.
U.S. National Recovery Administration. N.d. Minimum Price Regulation under Codes of Fair Competition. Trade Practice Study No. 56. Washington, D.C.: NRA.
— 1937. Report of the President’s Committee of Industrial Analysis. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.
Weinstein, M. M. 1978. “Some Redistributive and Macroeconomic Impacts of the National Industrial Recovery Act, 1933–1935.” Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1981 University of Rochester Center for Research in Government Policy and Business
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Weinstein, M.M. (1981). Some Macroeconomic Impacts of the National Industrial Recovery Act, 1933–1935. In: Brunner, K. (eds) The Great Depression Revisited. Rochester Studies in Economics and Policy Issues, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8135-5_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-8135-5_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-009-8137-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-8135-5
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive