A great leap forward : 1930s Depression and U.S. economic growth / Alexander J. Field.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The most technologically progressive decade of the century -- The interwar years -- The Second World War -- The Golden Age and beyond -- The information technology boom -- Fin de siècle : the late nineteenth century in the mirror of the twentieth -- Procyclical TFP -- The equipment hypothesis -- General-purpose technologies -- Financial fragility and recovery -- Uncontrolled land development and the duration of the Depression -- Do economic downturns have a silver lining?

This bold re-examination of the history of U.S. economic growth is built around a novel claim, that productive capacity grew dramatically across the Depression years (1929-1941) and that this advance provided the foundation for the economic and military success of the United States during the Second World War as well as for the golden age (1948-1973) that followed. The author takes a fresh look at growth data and concludes that, behind a backdrop of double-digit unemployment, the 1930s actually experienced very high rates of technological and organizational innovation, fueled by the maturing of a privately funded research and development system and the government-funded build-out of the country's surface road infrastructure. This significant new volume in the Yale Series in Economic and Financial History invites new discussion of the causes and consequences of productivity growth over the last century and a half and on our current prospects.