@techreport{NBERw15258,
 title = "What - or Who - Started the Great Depression?",
 author = "Lee E. Ohanian",
 institution = "National Bureau of Economic Research",
 type = "Working Paper",
 series = "Working Paper Series",
 number = "15258",
 year = "2009",
 month = "August",
 URL = "http://www.nber.org/papers/w15258",
 abstract = {Herbert Hoover. I develop a theory of labor market failure for the Depression based on Hoover's industrial labor program that provided industry with protection from unions in return for keeping nominal wages fixed. I find that the theory accounts for much of the depth of the Depression and for the asymmetry of the depression across sectors. The theory also can reconcile why deflation/low nominal spending apparently had such large real effects during the 1930s, but not during other periods of significant deflation.},
}