Suchergebnisse

This paper investigates therelationship between prosperity and national account data during wartime, focusing on Canada. In particular, we build off of existing literature arguing that military outlays must be excluded for real output measures to reasonably approximate economic prosperity. We analyse all non‐war components of Canadian gross national product during both world wars and estimate a novel price deflator for World War II in order to take into account wartime price controls. This allows us to obtain a new estimate of real output in Canada excluding military outlays. We then compare the trends in our new real output series with domestic private investment and stock market trends, all three of which either fell or grew at an anemic pace in Canada during both world wars. Combined, we argue that this provides evidence against the idea of wartime prosperity and more specifically, against the notion of World War II ending the Great Depression in Canada.

Bringing together several scholars from different social science disciplines who relate Hayek's theory of social change to empirical phenomena and methodological debates within their respective disciplines, Toward a Hayekian Theory of Social Change explores Hayek's political economy and social philosophy in new perspective.