40 research outputs found
Avoiding Default: The Role Of Credit In The Consumption Collapse Of 1930
No full textHigh consumer indebtedness threatens future consumption spending if default is expensive. Consumer spending collapsed in 1930, turning a minor recession into the Great Depression. Households were shouldering an unprecedented burden of installment debt. Down payments were large. Contracts were short. Equity in durable goods was therefore acquired quickly.Missed installment payments triggered repossession, reducing consumer wealth in 1930 because households lost all acquired equity. Cutting consumption was the only viable strategy in 1930 for avoiding default. Institutional changes lowered the cost of default by 1938. When recession began again, indebted households chose to default rather than reduce consumption. © 2000 the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The United States in the Twentieth Century: Markets. Edited by Grahame Thompson. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 1994. Pp. viii, 296. £12.99.
No full textThe United States in the Twentieth Century: Markets. Edited by Grahame Thompson. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 1994. Pp. viii, 296. £12.99.
No full textFinancing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit. By Lendol Calder. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Pp. xv, 377. $29.95.
No full text
Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing. By Pamela Walker Laird. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Pp. 479. $35.95.
No full text
