With a bang, not a whimper: Pricking Germany's stock market bubble in 1927 and the slide into depression

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Pompeu Fabra University; University of Cambridge
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050703001736
• 发表日期: 2003
• 页码: 65-99
• 关键词: great-depression; Rational bubbles; ECONOMIC-GROWTH; equity premium; INVESTMENT; prices; cointegration; uncertainty; inflation; CRITIQUE

摘要

In May 1927, the German central bank intervened indirectly to reduce lending to equity investors. The crash that followed ended the only stock market boom during Germany's relative stabilization 1924-1928. The evidence strongly suggests that the German central bank under Hjalmar Schacht was wrong to be concerned about stock prices-there was no bubble. Also, the Reichsbank was mistaken in its belief that a fall in the market would reduce the importance of short-term foreign borrowing and improve conditions in the money market. The misguided intervention had important real effects, Investment suffered, helping to tip Germany into depression.