NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Existing Estimates, New Estimates, and New Interpretations of World War I and its Aftermath

Christina D. Romer

NBER Working Paper No. 2187*
Issued in March 1987
NBER Program(s):   EFG

The paper examines the official Commerce Department estimates of gross national product for 1909-1928 and finds that they are far inferior to the less commonly used Kendrick GNP estimates. The paper then derives a revised version of the Kendrick series that alters significantly the representation of annual movements in the Kendrick series before 1919. This endorsement of a revised Kendrick GNP series in place of the official Commerce Department estimates before 1929 suggests new interpretations of the effect of World War I on the American economy and the nature and cause of the depression of 1921.

*Published: Romer, C. "World War I and the Postwar Depression: A Reinterpretation Based on Alternative Estimates of GNP," Journal of Monetary Economics, Vol. 22 , No. 1, July 1988, pp. 91-115.

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