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Effects Of The Great Depression On The U.S. And The World

      The introduction of the discussion will focus on the origins of
the Great Depression and the escalating events that led to it. This
will provide adequate foundations to bring up questions and attempt to
answer them in an objective fashion as to why and how the Depression
affected different industrialized countries in different ways.

        The core of the debate will consist of detailed comparable
analyses of the consequences of the Depression with an emphasis on
the economic aspects. The conclusion will provide a brief overview of
the ways used by the different governments to get out of that dark
episode of world economic history.

        When studying the Great Depression and it's effects, it is not
unusual for historians to choose World War I as a starting point for
their investigation. The reason for that is the importance of the
repercussions the conflict had on the economies of all the countries
that were involved in it.

        First of all, the War made it impossible for Europe to
maintain previous levels of production. For example, before the War,
France, the U.K. and Germany accounted for about 60 percent1 of the
world's exports of manufactured goods, a share of the market which
they could not sustain during the conflict. Consequently, Europe took
many of its markets to the U.S. and Japan. The stunted growth of the
European economies meant a lower demand for raw materials, which in
turn lowered the demand for European exports.

        In agriculture, things didn't look any better, as it was the
sector which employed the most people. At the end of World War I,
Europe was forced to import food from the U.S.. Moreover, these
transactions were conducted on a credit basis since Europe could not
afford to pay for its purchase at that time.

        Clearly, the U.S. was going from being a traditional debtor of
Europe before World War I to becoming its creditor: America had
financed the war and...