ABSTRACT
World War II, in many ways, constituted a sharp line of demarcation in the history of the American political economy and the global political economy more generally. The depression created a window of opportunity for introducing new policies and institutions that one can refer to as a distinctive New Deal Regime. Yet the new policies were insufficient to end the depression and there is much to suggest that the rapidity and inconsistency of change created uncertainty that impeded investment. But World War II forced levels of production that would have been unimaginable from the perspective of the 1930s and the unemployment rate fell to 1.9 percent in 1943, and 1.2 percent in 1944. For those who had experienced a 25 percent unemployment rate a decade earlier and the sharp decline of 1937, the contrast could not be greater.1
