Download Great Contraction - Economic Histroy - Past Exam and more Exams Economics in PDF only on Docsity! Department of Economics Economic History Field Exam University of California, Berkeley January 2011 Answer one question from each of parts A, B, and C: PART A: THE GREAT DEPRESSION: 1. “The Great Contraction,” the chapter on the Great Depression in Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’ _Monetary History of the United States_, is often described as the most influential economic analysis of the causes of the Great Depression. What exactly do Friedman and Schwartz argue? Is there analysis compelling? What are the shortcomings of their argument and their mode of analysis? If you were to try to write a similar chapter today, how would you write it differently? 2. One thing that makes history unstable is that the more we learn about the present as time advances changes our view of what happened in the past. How is your view of the Great Depression different in the aftermath of the Great Recession of 2007-2011 than your view would have been three years ago? 3. Is it best to think of the Great Depression as a single process, or as two processes--one centered in America and focused around banking crises and a flight out of private-sector risk assets and into quality, and the other centered in Europe and focused around exchange rate crises? Argue first for one and then for the other hypothesis, and then say where you come down. PART B: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS: 1. Charles Kindleberger famously argued that periods marked by shifts in global economic and geopolitical power also tend to be periods of exceptional instability for the world economy. Is the history of shifts in global economic preeminence (from China to the West, from the Dutch to the British, from Britain to the United States, for example) consistent with this hypothesis? If so, what is the connection between shifts in economic preeminence and economic instability? What if anything does this history tell us about the ongoing rise of China as a global power? 2. The old chestnut: Why Western Europe rather than China? Why Lancashire rather than the Yangzi Delta? 3. Why was the classical gold standard a relative success before and a flop after World War I? What more general lessons for exchange rate systems should we draw from this comparison? PART C: THE BUSINESS CYCLE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: 1. Economic historians have long debated whether there has been a tendency for nominal wages to grow more rigid over time. What is the most convincing evidence for and against this hypothesis? If there has been a change in nominal wage flexibility, when would you pinpoint it and how would you explain it? What are the main alternatives to your preferred timing and explanation?
