Great Depression Research Articles

Review: A Brick and a Bible: Black Women’s Radical Activism in the Midwest during the Great Depression, by Melissa Ford

Review: <i>A Brick and a Bible: Black Women’s Radical Activism in the Midwest during the Great Depression</i>, by Melissa Ford

COVID-19-Related Financial Hardship Is Associated With Depression and Anxiety in Substance Use Treatment Across Gender and Racial Groups.

Many individuals lost their employment during the COVID-19 pandemic and experienced financial hardship. These experiences may increase risk for co-occurring conditions, including substance use disorders (SUDs) and related symptoms of depression and anxiety. This study aimed to examine the associations between COVID-19-related financial hardship and/or job loss and co-occurring symptoms, across gender and racial groups. Respondents (N = 3493) included individuals entering SUD treatment in the United States in March-October of 2020. Results demonstrated that COVID-19-related financial hardship and unemployment in the household was associated with greater depression and anxiety severity among people in SUD treatment (p's < 0.05). Our findings highlight financial hardship and loss of employment as risk factors for co-occurring depression and anxiety. However, additive effects between marginalized identity status and COVID-19 economic hardship on co-occurring symptoms were not observed.

Religious Doubt and Mental Well-Being in Later Life: Is Humility a Protective Resource?

This study sought to integrate the study of virtue into the study of religious doubt and mental health by considering how a salient virtue, humility, may moderate the relationship between religious doubt and lower mental well-being. Drawing on data from a national sample of midlife and older adults ( N = 1,443) from the United States, regression results suggest that religious doubts were associated with greater depression and lower life satisfaction, and that humility was independently associated with lower depression and greater life satisfaction. Humility was also found to buffer the pernicious association between religious doubt and both indicators of mental well-being. Taken together, our study makes an important contribution by adding the study of the virtue of humility to a growing body of work on religious doubt. The process of dealing with religious doubt is complex and difficult, but the attempt to develop the virtue of humility may be efficacious in thwarting the deleterious consequences of managing the ebbs and flows of faith.

A Study on the Sense of Belonging of Chinese Students in the United States in the Post-epidemic Era

The global pandemic has affected the entire world from all kinds of aspects. People were forced to stay up home to avoid the virus, which led to the great depression both economically and culturally. A great number of small and medium-sized enterprises closed down on the economic side. For the cultural field, one of the most affected fields tends to be education. Because of the worldwide pandemic, most schools were shut down and students can only have classes through online access. Under this circumstance, various education-related issues arose. Almost all the Chinese international students were forced to go back to China or quarantined in the foreign culture due to the restrictions of travelling. Many Chinese international students happened to be stuck in negative emotions, which can be concluded as a lack of sense of belonging during these turbulent times. The lack of sense of belonging can mainly originate from three factors: socialization, academic performance, and internship application. This article will first look into the troubles caused by these three main factors and then develop targeted solutions to remit the condition and improve Chinese international students’ sense of belonging in the United States.

Improving Business Performance For SMEs: The Power Of Co-Innovation, And Business Networks Resilience In The Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 outbreak-induced economic crisis has been considered significantly worse than the Great Depression (1929–1939), which had been seen as the worst economic catastrophe in history. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have suffered heavier losses than large organizations during the pandemic. However, empirical results regarding relationships among resilient factors and SMEs performance have been inconclusive. This study builds on the Resources-based-view and Contingent Theory to examine one resilient factor as co-creation. Following a comprehensive literature review, quantitative research was adopted in this paper. There were a total of 450 SMEs participating in this study. SmartPLS 3.0 was performed on the relationship between co-innovation and SMEs outcomes. The findings show a positive and direct impact of co-innovation and organizational resilience and further leverage SMEs’ performance. Furthermore, it was found that co-innovation also boosts the resilience of business networks, SMEs which plays a critical role to business survival. Driven from these findings, SMEs in emerging markets should consider and focus on co-innovation with their stakeholders to overcome the long-lasting impacts from the pandemic.

Cities’ Hands Are Tied: Short-Term Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Natural Population Growth in Metropolitan Greece

To delineate new directions of urban development in a context of demographic shrinkage in Southern Europe, the present study illustrates a comparative analysis of the demographic balance in metropolitan Athens, Greece (1956–2021). The analysis delineates short-term and long-term dynamics of the natural population balance, considering the impact of the Great Recession and COVID-19 pandemic, and assuming a contemporary increase in gross mortality rates and a marked fertility reduction associated with birth postponement. To address such objectives, we have compared the natural growth of population (the ratio of the total number of births to deaths) at ten year intervals (1956, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2009, 2019, 2020, 2021) in 115 municipalities of metropolitan Athens, controlling for the local context. The empirical results of descriptive statistics, spatial analysis, correlation statistics, non-parametric inference, and exploratory multivariate techniques outline the indirect impact of COVID-19 on population dynamics, being in some ways additive to the already observed effects of the Great Recession, reinforcing demographic shrinkage in specific local contexts. The COVID-19 pandemic and the Great Crisis likely accelerated the typical outcomes (population aging and low fertility) of the second demographic transition in Greece. These dynamics are associated with more volatile (and possibly reduced) immigration flows and with enhanced emigration, fueling urban shrinkage and a progressive economic decline of metropolitan regions, as our evidence suggests for Athens. Additional research should ascertain the aggregate, indirect role of pandemics in population dynamics as a proxy of urban and regional decline in European regions exposed to long-term aging.

Trauma and mental health in Pacific Islanders.

Little is known about trauma and its mental health impact on Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders (NH/PI), an understudied Indigenous-colonized population that endures severe mental health disparities. This novel investigation assessed trauma prevalence and its mental health and substance use correlates in NH/PIs in the U.S. Using community-based participatory research methods, survey data on NH/PI trauma, depression, anxiety, substance use, and treatment need were collected from 306 NH/PI adults using online, telephone, and in-person methods. Descriptive statistics and adjusted regression models were employed. Sixty-nine percent of participants experienced lifetime trauma, reporting mean exposure to 2.5 different trauma types. Childhood physical and sexual abuse, and lifetime forced sexual assault rates were 34%, 25%, and 27%, respectively, exceeding general population rates. Women and men reported equivalent total mean exposure to different trauma types, as well as equal prevalence for every trauma type examined (e.g. sexual abuse/assault). Confirming hypotheses, after controlling for key demographic and mental health risk factors, increased exposure to multiple trauma types uniquely associated with greater depression, anxiety, alcohol symptomology, and greater likelihood for needing treatment and using illicit substances. Trauma is prevalent in NH/PI populations and significantly impacts NH/PI mental health; serving as an important but overlooked contributor to NH/PI mental health disparities. Current findings fill critical gaps in our knowledge of NH/PI trauma and mental health while revealing the importance of screening and treating NH/PIs for trauma exposure to alleviate existing mental health disparities.

Agenția Sighet a Băncii Naționale a României în perioada 1921–1950

Based on our research of archived documents, this paper retraces the history of the Sighet Agency of the National Bank of Romania (NBR) in the period between 1921 and 1950, that is from the time of its establishment to the time of Romania’s first administrative reorganisation during the communist regime. The establishment of the agency was part of the process of expanding the branch and agency network of the National Bank of Romania after the Union of 1918 and can be explained in several ways: the demographic, economic, and banking potential of the town of Sighet within Maramureș county, notwithstanding the challenges presented by the status of local means of transportation, the railway in particular, given that it was not entirely built on Romanian territory; the completion of monetary unification before the establishment of the local agency; the stages of acquiring the Sighet offices of the former Austrian-Hungarian Bank and the appointment of the agency’s first bank officers. The agency’s actual discount lending (rediscounting) operations, bearing the lowest existing interest rate, are exemplified by listing the agency’s customers and their loans, as well as by data showing the growing business volumes in the period from 1923 to 1929. For relevance purposes, the data is compared with similar data from the Craiova and Cluj branches. The impact of the Great Depression can be seen in the evolution of another banking operation, namely bank transfers, as well as in the audit reports prepared by auditors from the bank’s head office. There is also a list of people whose professional destiny was linked to the NBR Sighet Agency in the period between the two World Wars, both bank managers and other bank officers, among whom one may notice the remarkable figure of Romulus Roman, whose life tragically ended in a communist prison, after an exceptional career with the central bank. The consequences of the territorial changes which took place between 1938 and 1940 near Romania’s north-western border on the activity of the Sighet Agency are also traced back from the time when railway transportation was discontinued to the time when the bank’s offices were evauted. The last part of our paper is dedicated to the events which happened between 1945 and 1950, namely: the return of bank officers to the NBR Sighet offices in the context of the presence of Red Army troops in the region at a time of turmoil surrounding the establishment of Romania’s northern border; the withdrawal of foreign legal tenders (the Hungarian pengő, the Soviet pengö, roubles, Soviet lei); the resumption of bank operations in the context of the dramatic changes imposed by the communist regime, culminating at the time in the nationalisation of the NBR, the dissolution of banks, the disestablishment of Maramureș county and the establishment of the Baia Mare Region, following which the Sighet Agency of the Bank of the Romanian People’s Republic – the State Bank became the Sighet Region Subsidiary subordinated to the Baia Mare Regional Branch.

Competition, over‐branching and bank failures during the Great Depression: New evidence from Italy

AbstractThis paper employs quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the link between banking competition, branching and financial distress during the interwar period in Europe, focusing on Italy as a case study. Regression analysis and a systematic review of printed sources show that banks experiencing distress had opened scores of branches and operated in areas with harsher competition. Poor managerial choices led banks to have higher operational costs, pushing them to more remunerative but riskier activities. The 1920s saw a profound transformation of the Italian banking system, with extensive branch expansion and cut‐throat competition for deposits. This paper argues that these changes in the structure of the banking system rendered it more fragile when the international crisis hit. Available evidence on other European countries suggests that Italy was not an isolated case. The study contributes to the literature on banking crises during the Great Depression and the effects of banking competition on financial stability.

Trend analysis of hydro-climatic variables in the Great Lakes Depression region of Mongolia

Abstract Arid and semi-arid regions are the first to be affected by hydro-climatic changes. The Great Lakes Depression Basin in western Mongolia is the most notable example of such a region. Therefore, analyzing hydro-climatic changes in the Great Lakes Depression region is essential for future climate, hydrological, eco-hydrological processes, and ecosystem studies in similar areas and basins. In this study, Mann–Kendall (MK), innovative trend analysis method (ITAM), and Sen's slope estimator test (SSET) were used to determine the interrelationship between climate and river discharge changes and lake water level changes through statistical analysis. During the last 30 years, the air temperature has increased by 1.2 °C (Z = 1.16). Total annual precipitation decreased by 23.44 mm, resulting in 134.16 mm (Z = −0.79). The river discharge of the major rivers, such as Khovd River (Z = −3.51) and Zavkhan River (Z = −6.01), has significantly decreased. In Uvs (Z = 0.30) and Khyargas (Z = 2.03) lakes, the water level has also dropped. This study confirms that the increase in air temperature in the depression area of the Great Lakes reduces the amount of precipitation, and the decrease in precipitation affects the decrease in river discharge, which further affects the water level of the inflowing lakes.

Contagion of fear: Panics, money, and the Great Depression

Despite its centrality in debates about the causes and consequences of the Great Depression, banking panics’ impact on the money supply during this period remains a subject of ongoing debate. Before 1936, the Fed's decentralized structure meant that panics impacted money creation regionally while monetary impulses impacted bank stability nationally. We use this structure and newly digitized data to construct monetary aggregates at the Federal Reserve district level and apply a novel identification strategy that allows us to isolate the panics’ impact on monetary aggregates. We find that panics reduced the money supply by 27%, or in other words, that panics caused most of the decline in the money supply from June 1929 to December 1932.

Early-life economic conditions and old-age male mortality: evidence from historical county-level bank deposit data

This paper studies the long-run mortality effects of in utero and early-life economic conditions. We examine how local economic conditions experienced during the Great Depression, proxied by county-level banking deposits during in utero and first years of life, influences old-age longevity. We find that a one-standard-deviation rise in per capita bank deposits is associated with an approximately 1.7 month increase in males’ longevity at old age. Additional analyses comparing state-level versus county-level economic measures provide insight on the importance of controlling for local-level confounders and exploiting more granular measures when exploring the relationship between early-life conditions and later-life mortality.

Economic Crises in Recent World History: Analysis of Causes and Assessment of Consequences

The study «Economic Crises in History: Analysis and Consequences» provides a comprehensive overview of significant economic crises spanning different periods and regions of world history. The work extensively examines the following events: the Great Depression (1929–1933), the Asian Financial Crisis (1997), the Financial Crisis of 2008, the Eurozone Debt Crisis (2010–2012), the Crisis in Russia (1998), and the Oil Crisis of the 1970s.Each crisis is analyzed in terms of its causes, characteristics, impact on the economy and society, as well as measures taken to overcome its consequences. The study emphasizes the role of crises in correcting imbalances, stimulating innovations, and restructuring industries. Specific figures, such as unemployment rates, GDP contractions, changes in financial markets, and other economic indicators, are discussed within the context of each crisis.In the conclusion of the study, it is underscored that despite their complexity and negative consequences, crises can serve as catalysts for change, fostering structural reforms, improving efficiency, and contributing to the development of a resilient economy in the long term.

Art in times of crisis

AbstractWe trace the long‐term performance of the UK art market across a broad set of crises: world wars, economic recessions, financial crises, inflationary periods, and changes in monetary policy. By means of digitalized historical auction archives, we construct art price indices from the early twentieth century onwards and disclose that annual art auction value grew, in real terms, more than seven‐fold over this period. The arithmetic annual real return and risk amount to 3.6 per cent and 20.1 per cent, respectively. Art returns plummeted at the onset of wars, but turned positive in the second half of wars when they outperformed stocks, suggesting that art was seen as a safe haven in times of political turmoil. During wars, smaller – and thus more transportable – paintings obtained higher returns. Art returns are sensitive to economic and financial crises, with the largest slumps occurring during the Great Depression, oil crisis, recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s, and the Great Recession. We also document changes in art preferences for paintings’ sizes, schools, liquid art, and artists’ nationalities across crises. Art enters a broad optimal asset portfolio both in non‐crisis periods and during war times.

From Inception to Alternative: A Case of GDP

GDP became the yardstick for measuring the size of an economy and its level of development after its invention in the 1930s. It is the result of an intellectual battle that began with the Political Arithmetic in 1665 and continued through the Great Depression and World War II. Economic progress has determined the speed of development, according to Clark, Kuznets, Keynes, and Stone, through production, income, and output. It was the great invention of the time in terms of measuring and governing policies for economic progress. However, it is now being misused and even used to measure things for which it was never intended. Furthermore, this laid the groundwork for its place in the twenty-first century. Academics and practitioners, as well as governments around the world, are now attempting to look beyond GDP and focus on developing alternatives. This academic paper attempts to investigate the invention of GDP and various alternatives developed so far worldwide. The paper contributes to the literature on ‘Beyond GDP.’.

Recovery and trauma among urban African Americans with serious mental illness.

Traumatic experiences are prevalent among people with serious mental illness and can significantly worsen outcomes. This study aimed to identify an urban cluster of trauma types, compare continuous distress ratings versus categorical experience of trauma for predicting outcomes such as depression and quality of life, and investigate the mediating role of recovery orientation in the impact of trauma exposure on outcomes. Data came from an intervention study on African Americans with serious mental illness living in a large urban area; 212 participants completed baseline self-report measures of past trauma experiences, related distress levels, recovery, depression, and quality of life. Data were assessed using correlations and regressive path modeling. Overall, 56.6% of participants reported experiences with trauma. Analyses suggested an urban cluster of trauma types that was self-reported by over 25% of participants. Distress due to trauma strongly correlated with greater depression as well as reduced quality of life and recovery. Interestingly, the categorical presence of trauma history (yes/no) had no significant relationship with any outcomes. Path analyses revealed that recovery mediated the impact of trauma distress on depression and quality of life, specifically implicating the recovery subfactor of hope. Results suggested that cognitive reframing focused on positive appraisals of overall recovery, and the hope subfactor can have a positive influence on trauma outcomes. The study supported the role of recovery in posttraumatic growth and suggests that hope can be used to help patients process trauma healthily. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A19 THE IMPACT OF FOOD INSECURITY ON ADHERENCE TO A GLUTEN-FREE DIET IN THE ADULT CELIAC DISEASE POPULATION ATTENDING A DEDICATED CELIAC CLINIC

Abstract Background A strict gluten-free diet (GFD) is currently the only treatment for celiac disease (CeD), but a GFD can be inconvenient and expensive. CeD patients who are food insecure (FI) face threats to GFD adherence, overall health, and quality of life. Aims To evaluate the prevalence of FI in patients with CeD attending a dedicated Adult Celiac Disease Clinic (ACDC) at an academic hospital and to examine the relationship between FI and GFD adherence, quality of life and various gastrointestinal symptoms. Methods Patients were invited to participate in the CeD registry when they attended the ACDC; those who agreed to participate then provided verbal and signed consent. Patients had the option to complete the CeD registry forms in the clinic on an iPad or at home using a card with a QR code and a unique ID to access the online CeD registry. The CeD registry uses REDCap (v. 11.1, 2021, US) and includes six validated questionnaires (Celiac Diet Adherence Test (CDAT), Celiac Disease Quality of Life Questionnaire (CD QoL), Celiac Symptom Index (CSI), Gastrointestinal Symptom Rating Scale (GSRS), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Household Food Security Survey Module (HFSSM)). Continuous data are expressed as mean (SD), and categorical data as proportions of patients. The chi-squared test with Fisher correction and t-test were used to assess differences between groups. Results A total of 653 patients attended the ACDC from November 2, 2022, to September 20, 2023, and 411 patients were invited to participate in this study. Of them, 204 completed the CeD registry. Food insecurity was identified in 16% of CeD patients, of whom 11 (5%) were marginally FI, 16 (8%) were moderately FI, and 7 (3%) were severely FI. Compared to CeD patients who are food secure, a greater proportion of FI CeD patients reported nonadherence to GFD (26/34 vs 70/170; p&amp;lt;0.001), reduced QoL (32/34 vs 98/170; p&amp;lt;0.001), greater anxiety (27/34 vs 84/170; p=0.001) and greater depression (13/34 vs 26/170; p=0.004) compared with normal values. CeD patients with FI also reported lower QoL [61.0(14.9) vs 49.6(16.7); p=0.001] and increased gastrointestinal symptoms [GSRS 37.7(14.7) vs 29.0(12.8); p=0.001] compared with food secure CeD patients. Conclusions Food insecurity is common in patients with CeD and is associated with significantly worse adherence to treatment, symptom control, and quality of life. There is an important need for programs and societal measures to abolish food insecurity and ensure adequate access to treatment for patients with CeD. Funding Agencies TRIANGLE Summer Studentship

The Association of Quality of Life with Psychosocial Factors in Adolescents with Tourette Syndrome.

Individuals with Tourette syndrome (TS) have poorer quality of life (QoL) than their peers, yet factors contributing to poor QoL in this population remain unclear. Research to date has predominantly focused on the impact of tics and psychiatric symptoms on QoL in TS samples. The aim of this cross-sectional, multi-informant study was to identify psychosocial variables that may impact adolescent QoL in TS. Thirty-eight adolescents aged 13 to 17 with TS and 28 age-matched controls participated with a caregiver. No group differences were found on QoL, although the TS group reported reduced QoL compared to population normative data. In the TS group, reduced QoL was associated with lower self-esteem, poorer family functioning, higher stress, and greater depression and anxiety; QoL was unrelated to tic severity. In regression analyses, after adjusting for covariates, family functioning was the strongest predictor of QoL. These results emphasize the need to further explore the influence of psychosocial factors, particularly family functioning, on QoL in adolescents with TS.

On the propagation mechanism of international real interest rate spillovers: evidence from more than 200 years of data

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the real interest rate transmission mechanism across the United States, Japan, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom over a period of more than 200 years. Based on a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) connectedness methodology, the empirical results suggest that the size of the international real interest rate spillovers ranges between 30% and 75% across the sample period. Furthermore, it is shown that these spillovers increase during crisis periods, such as the two World Wars, the Great Depression of 1929, the 1980 and 1990 recessions, or the Great Financial Crisis of 2009. More interestingly, our findings illustrate the position of each of these eight countries as net transmitters or receivers of monetary policy shocks over time. Our analysis contributes to the debate on whether the conduct of monetary policy in a country should consider its international spillovers, suggesting the need for more coordinated monetary policies especially during periods of economic crises.

The Pack Horse Library Initiative and Kentucky's librarians in the Great Depression: An academic essay

The history of libraries is a complex story of ups and downs. There have been times in American history when libraries almost ceased to exist (Boyd, 2009). One of those moments was during the American Great Depression of the 1930s. During this time, American institutions failed, jobs disappeared, homes were lost, and American libraries began to disappear. This paper aims to discover the Pack Horse Library Project's role in Kentucky history and its legacy. This paper answers two questions—How did The Pack Horse Library Project save libraries in Kentucky? And how did women save library services in eastern Kentucky?—by exploring different aspects of this topic, including the history of libraries in Kentucky during the Great Depression, The New Deal, the creation of the Works Progress Administration, the history of the Pack Horse Library Project, what role the program had on the development of libraries in Kentucky, and how the Pack Horse Library Project affected the role of women in the library.