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Hoover's Truce: Wage Rigidity in the Onset of the Great Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2010

Jonathan D. Rose
Jonathan D. Rose*
Affiliation:
Economist, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, 20th and C Streets NW, Washington, DC 20551. E-mail: Jonathan.D.Rose@frb.gov.
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Abstract

This article analyzes President Herbert Hoover's role in causing wage rigidity during the onset of the Great Depression, through two conferences in which he encouraged business leaders to maintain high wages. New data on the set of firms and trade associations attending these conferences provides evidence that Hoover's conferences delayed the cuts in hourly wages at a small number of large firms, although this result may have been due to characteristics of the particular industries the firms represented. In a cross-section of industries, there is no evidence that industry representation at the December conference affected the timing of wage cuts.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 70 , Issue 4 , December 2010 , pp. 843 - 870
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2010

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