ABSTRACT
Across explanations of the Great Depression, it is possible to observe a common emphasis on the potential for economic actors’ changing expectations to shake the foundations of material life. The first part of this chapter reviews the leading economic explanations of the Great Depression in the United States to show the central role of changing expectations within them. Subsequently, the focus turns to the types of historical evidence that economists have used to sustain their claims about economic expectations’ role in the Great Depression. The conclusion offers some suggestions for new types of historical evidence and its integration into conceptual analyses of the formation and impact of economic expectations in this historical crisis.
