ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the relevance of various policy measures within the context of the following themes: external protection; macroeconomic policy; the relief of agriculture; and state intervention and the promotion of industry and provides an overall assessment. The main tax base of the State was seriously eroded at a time when the demand for relief payments became ever greater because of the distress caused by the depression. The crisis itself shattered the region’s fragile prosperity and eliminated any hope of its reintegration into the international economy. The collapse of export receipts, together with the cessation of capital inflows and the subsequent panic withdrawal of funds in the 1931 financial crisis, effectively rendered Eastern Europe insolvent. The majority of policy measures, at least in the early part of the 1930s, often inconsistent and contradictory, and more likely to depress than to lift the level of economic activity. External policy was pursued more vigorously than in many other countries.
