Date of Award
1933
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Keywords
Great Depression, Economic Crisis, Depression Causes, Unemployment, Economic Recovery, Business Cycles, Economic History, Speculation, Social Justice, Economic Psychology
Abstract
This thesis, submitted to Xavier University in partial fulfillment of requirements for a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education in 1933, examines the causes, history, and proposed remedies of economic depressions, with particular attention to the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Millet surveys the history of financial panics and depressions from the eighteenth century through 1929, distinguishing among the terms "crisis," "panic," and "depression" as used in economic literature, and reviewing recurring patterns across historical episodes in the United States, England, and other countries.
Proposed causes of depressions are examined next, including excessive optimism, speculation, overproduction, and war debts, drawing on economists including Adam Smith and F. W. Taussig to explain the psychological dimensions of business cycles, particularly the role of middlemen in accelerating price rises and declines through anticipatory buying and selling. Millet argues that public mental attitude, encompassing both optimism and fear, plays a central role in shaping economic conditions. Methods used historically to address economic downturns are then reviewed, including banking moratoria and currency measures adopted in Europe and the United States, alongside contemporary proposals for recovery such as guild-based economic organization and expanded government responsibility for social justice. The thesis concludes by proposing that lasting recovery depends on public education in economic and social principles, arguing that temporary relief measures such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and currency inflation will not resolve the underlying problem without broader social and economic literacy among citizens.
Note: No original abstract was included; this abstract is provided by the XULA Digital Commons editors.
Recommended Citation
Millet, Percy Joseph, "Depressions" (1933). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 136.
https://digitalcommons.xula.edu/etd/136
Included in
Economic History Commons, Industrial and Organizational Psychology Commons, Macroeconomics Commons