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The Role of the Interest Rate in Causing the Great Depression
Ali, Bano ; Ryska, Pavel (advisor) ; Cahlík, Tomáš (referee)
This thesis analyzes the major causes of the severe economic depression appeared in 1930s. It focuses on the role of the interest rate in its causing and the duration of it. The aim is to - through the comparison of three economic schools - Keynesians, Austrians, and Monetarists - show the different views of understanding the interest rate as such and then apply them on the situation before and during the crisis to explain various perspectives on its role in possible causing of the contraction of economic activity in a process of the business cycle. The comparison outlines, how deeply individual schools differ. While Keynesians considered the dear money and high interest rates as the main cause of the crisis and similarly to Monetarists, they both suggested keeping them on low level, Austrians promptly refused the policy of low interest rates. Further, firstly, it shows the inverse relationship between the growth of money supply and interest rates in 1920s and proves that the decrease of interest rates was caused to large extent by the increased quantity of money. Secondly, it provides the evidence that the growth of money supply and of investment spending was larger than the growth of gross domestic product.
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Great Depression and its causes from the perspective of economic theories
Pýcha, Ondřej ; Sirůček, Pavel (advisor) ; Nečadová, Marta (referee)
The Great Depression was the greatest economic downturn in 20th century. In my work I describe a period before the crisis, and the collapse of the American Stock Exchange, which is often wrongly considered as the beginning of crisis. Main economical theories saw different reasons of crisis. Keynesians saw the biggest problem in the lack of aggregate demand and the solutions they saw in government stimulation of demand. Austrian school with this theory completely disagreed and saw just the biggest mistake of the government interventions that deepened the crisis. Monetarists saw the biggest problem in the failure of the Federal Reserve, which failed at the time of distress, when it should get adequate amount of money to banks. Saw a possible solution in reducing the interest rate and Federal reserve should purchase government bonds held by commercial banks. The United States got out of the crisis thanks to government spending during the World War II.
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