Made in Germany: The German currency crisis of July 1931

Abstract

The Great Depression reached a turning point in the currency crises of 1931, and the German banking and currency crisis was a critical event whose causes are still debated. We demonstrate in this paper that the crisis was primarily domestic in origin; that it was a currency crisis rather than a banking crisis; and that the failure was more political than economic. German banks failed in 1931, but the problem was not primarily with them. Instead, the crisis was a failure of political will in a time of turmoil that induced a currency crisis.

Citation

Ferguson, T. and Temin, P. (2003), "Made in Germany: The German currency crisis of July 1931", Research in Economic History (Research in Economic History, Vol. 21), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-53. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0363-3268(03)21002-8