The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered: New Estimates of Gross NationalProduct, 1869-1918 / Christina D. Romer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Romer, Christina.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w1969.

NBER working paper series no. w1969

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Economic conditions--1865-1918.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1986.

Cambridge, Massachusetts : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1986.

Summary:

This paper shows that the existing estimates of prewar gross national

product exaggerate the size of cyclical fluctuations. The source of the

exaggeration is that the original Kuznets estimates are based on the

assumption that GNP moves one-for-one with commodity output valued at

producer prices. New estimates of GNP for 1869-1918 are derived using the

estimated aggregate relationship between GNP and commodity output for the

interwar and postwar eras. The new estimates of GNP indicate that the

business cycle is only slightly more severe in the pre-Worid War I era than in the post-World War II era.

Notes:

July 1986.

Print version record