History

Created 3/5/1996
Go to Brad DeLong's Home Page

Midterm

for Economics 115

Fall 1996

Identifications (one sentence each; three minutes each; 1/3 of exam):

1. The Gold Standard.

2. Black Thursday

3. Wigan Pier (the place, not the book)

4. "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren," by John Maynard Keynes

5. The Communist Manifesto

6. William L. Shirer

7. Herbert Stein

8. Herbert Hoover

Short Answers (one paragraph each; six minutes each; 1/3 of exam):

1. Christina Romer argues that the ultimate cause of the Great Depression in the United States was the late-1920s stock market boom. What actions did the Federal Reserve take in response to the stock market boom, and how did they trigger the initial recession that ultimately became the Great Depression?

2. Barry Eichengreen argues that the gold standard provides exchange rate stability: that under the gold standard pressures that would otherwise lead to changes in the exchange rate are offset by the government and business reactions to the flows of gold across national borders that accompany upward or downward pressures on the exchange rate. What are these government and business reactions under the gold standard that ensure exchange rate stability?

3. On the second page of his chapter, "Life in the Third Reich," the author of The Nightmare Years writes that the German people under Hitler "did not seem to feel that they were being cowed and held down by an unscrupulous tyranny. On the contrary, and much to my surprise, they appeared to support it with genuine enthusiasm." What are the most important specifics that the author mentions in support of this conclusion?

4. On the first page, the author of The Fiscal Revolution in America writes that the president "proposed a tax increase both to raise employment and to balance the budget" during the 1929-1932 slide into the Great Depression. Why did the then-president think that increasing taxes--taking money and purchasing power out of the economy--was the right thing to do in the midst of the Great Depression?

Short Essays (twelve minutes each; 1/3 of exam):

1. Which of the readings assigned for Economics 115 to date (through Alan Milward's War, Economy, and Society 1939-1945) would you drop from the syllabus next year if you were teaching the course? Why?

2. Christina Romer, Barry Eichengreen, Charles Kindleberger, John Maynard Keynes, George Orwell, and Lester Chandler all give different views of the Great Depression. Pick three. Based on what has been assigned for Economics 115, how are their focuses different? What features does one see that the other two miss? And how do their different focuses affect the conclusions they draw about the causes, nature, and consequences of the Great Depression?

History

Created 3/5/1996
Go to Brad DeLong's Home Page

Professor of Economics J. Bradford DeLong, 601 Evans
University of California at Berkeley, #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
(510) 643-4027phone (510) 642-6615 fax
delong@econ.berkeley.edu
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/
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