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This paper examines the factors contributing to the rise in unemployment in Australia during the depression of the 1930s and to its decline in the subsequent recovery. While previous writers have generally argued that demand side variables were predominant, it has also claimed that excessive real wages created unemployment. The Layard-Nickell model, which has been used to examine the relationship between real wages and unemployment in interwar Britain, is estimated from Australian data. The results of the estimation confirm that demand side variables in the form of changes in government spending and in the terms of trade were important in both the downturn and the recovery. Although real wages affected employment and wage indexation procedures resulted in some real wage rigidity this was not a major contributor to unemployment. In addition wage indexation resulted in a high degree of flexibility of money wages, so that nominal inertia was not a problem This is in contrast to a country, such as the UK, where wages are determined by collective bargaining rather than by formal wage regulation. No evidence was found that the much discussed decision of the Commonwealth Court to reduce real wages by 10% was effective.

This paper examines the factors contributing to unemployment in Australia during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Previous writers have emphasised the role of demand-side variables but it has also been argued that excessive real wages caused unemployment. The Layard-Nickell model, developed originally for the postwar British economy, is applied to Australian data. The empirical results confirm that demand shocks in the form of changes in government spending and in the terms of trade were important in both downturn and recovery. Wage indexation resulted in some rigidity of real wages but this was not a major cause of unemployment.

This paper examines the factors contributing to the rise in unemployment in Australia during the depression of the 1930s and to its decline in the subsequent recovery. While previous writers have generally argued that demand side variables were predominant, it has also claimed that excessive real wages created unemployment. The Layard-Nickell model, which has been used to examine the relationship between real wages and unemployment in interwar Britain, is estimated from Australian data. The results of the estimation confirm that demand side variables in the form of changes in government spendin g and in the terms of trade were important in both the downturn and the recovery. Although real wages affected employment and wage indexation procedures resulted in some real wage rigidity this was not a major contributor to unemployment. In addition wage indexation resulted in a high degree of flexibility of money wages, so that nominal inertia was not a problem. This is in contrast to a country, such as the UK, where wages are determined by collective bargaining rather than by formal wage regulation. No evidence was found that the much discussed decision of the Commonwealth Court to reduce real wages by 10% was effective.

This paper contributes to the debate on the causes of unemployment in interwar Germany. It applies the Layard-Nickell model of the labour market to interwar Germany, using a new quarterly data set. The basic model is extended to capture the effects of the tariff wage under the Weimar Republic and the Nazis. The estimated equations suggest that demand shocks, combined with nominal inertia in the labour market, were important in explaining unemployment. In addition real wage pressures due to the political processes of wage determination were a major influence on unemployment. Negative demand shocks appear to have been initially domestic and to have started before the impact of the World Depression. Both negative developments on the demand side of the economy and pressures coming from the supply side raised unemployment in the slump. In the recovery the wage policies of the Nazis and the revival of demand both contributed to the fall in unemployment. The mutual reinforcement of these factors may help to explain the severity of the interwar cycle in Germany. It also serves to emphasize the close connection between political and economic processes in this important episode in macroeconomic history.