This article explores the interplay between business elites and the Argentine state in shaping social policy from the late nineteenth century until 1943, focusing on the sugar industry in Jujuy. It asks why sugar industrialists introduced welfare measures in their mills during the 1930s and what social conditions shaped their choices. We argue that limited assistance initiatives, introduced following the Great Depression, allowed mill owners to justify tariff protection while reinforcing their dominance over workers and curbing union influence. These measures, rooted in the sugar elites’ control of provincial politics and sustained intervention in the state apparatus, exemplify early forms of private–public cooperation in welfare provision. By tracing the evolution of state–business interaction in social provision, the article demonstrates how local industries shaped welfare regimes before the rise of Peronism, offering new insights into the diversity of policy responses and social realities in Argentina and Latin America.

Este artículo examina una entidad financiera marginada completamente por la historiografía: el Banco Prendario Municipal de Bogotá (BP). Analizando su historia se aborda el crédito prendario o pignoraticio durante la Gran Depresión en perspectiva regional. Este tipo de organización financiera emergió en diferentes partes de América Latina hacia finales del S.XIX y comienzos del S.XX con el propósito de atender a los más necesitados. El argumento sostiene que el BP fue una entidad atípica, siendo diseñado con una estructura accionaria mixta (público-privada) del ámbito local. Además, el BP cobraba los intereses más altos de la región, generando controversias sobre su rol benéfico (o usurero) en la sociedad capitalina. El análisis de desempeño se hace desde una perspectiva regional que permite contextualizar e identificar su lugar en la historia. Los hallazgos señalan que el BP prosperó durante la crisis, expandiendo sus operaciones, reduciendo la cartera morosa y fortaleciendo el patrimonio.

Recent studies have shown that fertility was adversely impacted by the Great Recession of 2008 in both developed and developing nations. We look back further in time to explore how the Great Depression of the 1930s affected fertility rates across the United States. Our main results suggest that a one percent increase in state personal income per capita is associated with a 0.17 to 0.25 percent increase in fertility the next year, which is consistent with estimates found during the post-World War II economy in the United States. Thus, we conclude that fertility decisions were indeed pro-cyclical during the 1930s.

This article examines the repercussions of the European banking crises of 1931 on Argentina’s banking sector, emphasizing the role of European banks with branches in the country. While existing literature has focused on the spread of financial instability in Europe and the United States, little attention has been given to the effects on developing economies. Argentina, a key destination for European capital, provides a compelling case study. Using balance sheets, financial statements and archival evidence, this study explores how European banks acted as conduits for the transmission of the 1931 crisis. As parent banks in Europe faced strain, their Argentine affiliates experienced significant deposit withdrawals and were forced to revise their balance sheet strategies, heightening vulnerability within Argentina’s banking system. The findings highlight the broader consequences of global financial integration and suggest that the ripple effects of the European meltdown prolonged recessionary pressures in Argentina, altering lending practices long after the initial shock. This research contributes to the historiography of interwar banking, offering a deeper understanding of the dynamics between European and developing economies during the Great Depression, and underscores the need for further exploration of financial instability in peripheral regions.

The Great Depression in 1929 had a transformative impact on Turkey. The institutions established to minimize the effects of the crisis propagated a set of statist measures. The National Economy and Savings Association and Public Press Directorate utilized photography and painting in the beginning of the 1930s to propagate those measures. In their efforts, these institutions constructed a new conception of landscape with a moral agenda: citizens and artists should travel in Anatolia to learn about the country, love it, and create art accordingly. Key to this conception was the productivity of the land. The most comprehensive cultural program during World War II, Homeland Tours, mimicked this new conception of a landscape. This article analyzes the conception of productive landscapes up until the end of World War II by drawing attention to the overlooked photography collection in the State Archives, which comprises paintings made during the Homeland Tours. One of the many tools that the statist economic institutions devised was agricultural statistics. The comparison between the paintings and actual land use statistics demonstrates that the artists collectively followed the statist economic agenda.

Who benefits from deep economic crises: the left, the right or neither? On the basis of evidence from elections in 1929–1933 and 2008–2013 in all states that were democracies in both periods, it is argued in this article that the electoral consequences of the Great Depression and the Great Recession were surprisingly similar: in both periods, right‐wing parties were at first more successful than left‐wing parties, although this effect only lasted for a few years. The manner in which a crisis develops over time should be taken into account when examining the effects of deep economic downturns on the electoral fortunes of the left and the right.

Political science with its rich history, but varying national traditions and contexts, deals with a multi-dimensional and ever-changing subject matter of which we are, inevitably, a part. This poses specific epistemological problems, but also offers the opportunity to contribute to the shaping of political reality by insights and actions. This lecture gives a brief outline of this problematique and then presents, by way of illustration, the findings of a major international research project on the political effects of the Great Depression in Europe in the interwar period. Based on this experience, some (tentative and personal) lessons will be drawn for the state of political science and its potential contributions facing the present world economic crisis.

El comercio transpacífico entre América Latina y Asia Oriental durante el período previo a la Segunda Guerra Mundial ha sido escasamente estudiado. En este artículo, analizamos la construcción desde Argentina del vínculo mercantil con Japón entre 1934 y 1940. Al hacerlo, ponderamos las oportunidades y las limitaciones que surgieron en un contexto de des-globalización económica, y arrojamos luz sobre las posibilidades de diversificación geográfica del comercio exterior argentino. Abordando diversas fuentes de los sectores público y privado, el estudio revela que las iniciativas gubernamentales por profundizar los lazos con el socio oriental, apoyadas por los agroexportadores, enfrentó críticas de los empresarios textiles, quienes acusaron a Japón de ejercer dumping financiero y social.

The Great Depression era provides a natural experiment to study the effects of employee stock ownership on productivity due to the unexpected nature of the stock market crash in 1929 and the predetermined expiration of employee stock offerings staggered throughout the 1930s. I collect information on employee stock ownership from reports by the National Industrial Conference Board, annual company reports and other primary sources, and then merge them with the US Census of Manufactures to form the main establishment-level dataset. The results indicate that companies with active programs had significantly lower establishment-level output growth and fewer hours worked per employee than firms with inactive ESOPs post-crash. These negative effects, however, can be mitigated in smaller firms where employees feel their effort level has non-negligible effects. To my knowledge, this is the first study to empirically investigate these early ESOPs as well as address how continuing an employee stock ownership program during a financial crisis affects productivity.

For some sixty years, the dominant narrative of the financial crisis of 1931 and Great Depression has been one of failure of central banks to cooperate and act as lenders of last resort. This historical narrative has become dominant and led to a marginalization of understanding the Great Depression as a result of an inherent instability of capitalism. Rather than arguing that one or the other of these narratives is true, in this article I examine how contemporary actors made retrospective sense of the European financial crisis of 1931 and how they used that history to shape lessons for uncertain futures. My approach is based on the concepts of sensemaking and narrative emplotment under radical uncertainty. The article shows that most contemporaneous actors were positive in their assessment of central banks and that they focused mostly on short-term capital flows and the interconnectedness of the financial system as well as structural issues going back to the Versailles Treaty in making sense of the crisis.