The Great Depression Curriculum
History holds many economic lessons. The Great Depression, in particular, is an event that provides the opportunity to teach and learn a great deal about economics— whether you’re studying the economic reasons that the Depression took place, the factors that helped it come to an end or the impact on Americans who lived through it. This curriculum is designed to provide teachers with economic lessons that they can share with their students to help them understand this significant experience in U.S. history.
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The Great Depression: Lessons in Today's Economy
Stable Prices, Stable Economy
Conventional wisdom holds that if policymakers are too focused on controlling inflation, then employment, output growth and financial stability will suffer. But the conventional wisdom is wrong, according to the data. Learn more by reading “Stable Prices, Stable Economy,” the lead article of the January 2008 issue of The Regional Economist, the St. Louis Fed’s quarterly regional economic magazine. The article’s two sidebars, “Hyperinflations Make the Great Inflation Seem like a Walk in the Park" and "Price Instability Knocked Economy Off Its Feet in 1930s, 1970s," discuss historical examples of price instability.
Federal Response to Home Mortgage Distress
The article "Federal Response to Home Mortgage: Lessons from the Great Depression" by St. Louis Fed economist David C. Wheelock in the May/June issue of the St. Louis Fed's Review examines the federal response to mortgage distress during the Great Depression, focusing on the growth of mortgage debt and the subsequent sharp increase in mortgage defaults and foreclosures. It summarizes the major federal initiatives to reduce foreclosures and reform mortgage market practices, focusing especially on the activities of the Home OwnersÕ Loan Corporation (HOLC), which acquired and refinanced one million delinquent mortgages between 1933 and 1936.