Financial Crises, Market Crashes, and Economic Depressions

Summer 2011

Jeffrey Parker, Reed College

Essay #2: Due Monday, July 18

Briefly explain the role that each of the following may have played in making the Great Depression so severe. Each explanation should be on the order of a single page (no more than two).

• Increases in banks' demand for reserves and the public's demand for currency
• The death of Benjamin Strong and/or conflicts within the governance structure of the Federal Reserve System
• Deflation
• Reductions in bank lending
• The presumption of the continuation (or resumption) of the international gold standard