ABSTRACT
The Austrian economy of the interwar period was crisis-ridden. It suffered from inflation, underwent stabilization crises and erratic growth in the 1920s, and hardly attained the prewar national income level before the Great Depression hit. However, while it is certainly true that deflationary policy impeded economic recovery, the micro-economic development shows that these policy implications have been overestimated; long-term structural preconditions, circumstances, and transformations were the primary determinants of economic growth. The second long-term structural transformation was an intensifying and accelerating expansion of industrialization in the world economic periphery and in the advanced countries outside of Europe, such as the United States and Canada. In the environment of global structural changes, small advanced countries largely depended on international trade for their economic growth. The limitations of Austria's economic policy and of its structural preconditions, circumstances, long-term transformations, and their negative effects were directly reflected in the business of the largest Austrian industrial joint-stock companies.
