In the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1929, Yale University Economics Professor Irving Fisher remained steadfast in his view that the boom in prices had been warranted, pointing to the myriad innovations of the 1920s, including the introduction of the electric unit drive and utility-supplied power. Dismissed by most, this view has since given way to Alan Greenspan’s view of irrational exuberance. This book presents a series of contemporary and period writings which rehabilitate the fundamentals view, showing why Irving Fisher was right. Whereas Fisher was unable to provide a convincing narrative for the crash, these writings point to the Hoover Administration’s tariff initiative, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Bill, as the key element which contributed to both the boom and the crash.

Understanding the American stock market boom and bust of the 1920s is vital for formulating policies to combat the potentially deleterious effects of busts on the economy. Using new data, Kabiri explains what led to the 1920s stock market boom and 1929 crash and looks at whether 1929 was a bubble or not and whether it could have been anticipated.

John Kenneth Galbraith's classic study of the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

Standard tests find that no bubbles are present in the stock price data for the last one hundred years. In contrast., historical accounts, focusing on briefer periods, point to the stock market of 1928-1929 as a classic example of a bubble. While previous studies have restricted their attention to the joint behavior of stock prices and dividends over the course of a century, this paper uses the behavior of the premia demanded on loans collateralized by the purchase of stocks to evaluate the claim that the boom and crash of 1929 represented a bubble. We develop a model that permits us to extract an estimate of the path of the bubble and its probability of bursting in any period and demonstrate that the premium behaves as would be expected in the presence of a bubble in stock prices. We also find that our estimate of the bubble's path has explanatory power when added to the standard cointegrating regressions of stock prices and dividends, in spite of the fact that our stock price and dividend series are cointegrated.

"Most of the matter in this book has appeared in the Saturday Evening Post during the last twelve months."--Author's note. June 1, 1932.

The day of October 24, 1929, will be forever remembered as "Black Thursday." On this day, stock prices plummeted. By the following Tuesday, Wall Street had suffered the worst stock market crash in history, changing the lives of millions of Americans. Fortunes and life savings were wiped out. People's confidence in business was shattered. After the crash, weaknesses that were already present in the U. S. economy raced out of control. Unemployment soared. Factories and stores closed. Poverty and despair settled over millions of Americans. The stock market crash of 1929 marked the end of a decade of prosperity as the nation found itself swept into the Great Depression. In The Stock Market Crash of 1929: Dawn of the Great Depression, author Mary Gow captures this important period in U. S. history through firsthand accounts and quotes. Also examined are subsequent economic crises, up to the present day. Book jacket.

Why do stock and housing markets sometimes experience amazing booms followed by massive busts and why is this happening more and more frequently? In order to answer these questions, William Quinn and John D. Turner take us on a riveting ride through the history of financial bubbles, visiting, among other places, Paris and London in 1720, Latin America in the 1820s, Melbourne in the 1880s, New York in the 1920s, Tokyo in the 1980s, Silicon Valley in the 1990s and Shanghai in the 2000s. As they do so, they help us understand why bubbles happen, and why some have catastrophic economic, social and political consequences whilst others have actually benefited society. They reveal that bubbles start when investors and speculators react to new technology or political initiatives, showing that our ability to predict future bubbles will ultimately come down to being able to predict these sparks.

Attempting to reveal the real causes of the 1929 stock market crash, Bierman refutes the popular belief that wild speculation had excessively driven up stock market prices and resulted in the crash. Although he acknowledges some prices of stocks such as utilities and banks were overprices, reasonable explanations exist for the level and increase of all other securities stock prices. Indeed, if stocks were overpriced in 1929, then they more even more overpriced in the current era of staggering growth in stock prices and investment in securities. The causes of the 1929 crash, Bierman argues, lie in an unfavorable decision by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities coupled with the popular practice known as debt leverage in the 1920s corporate and investment arena. This book extends Bierman's argument in an earlier book, The Great Myths of 1929 and the Lessons to Be Learned (Greenwood, 1991), in which he discussed and refuted seven myths about 1929 but could not explain the crash. He now believes he has a reasonable explanation. He also examines the actions of Charles E. Mitchell and Sam Insull and their subsequent unjust criminal prosecution after the crash of the 1929 stock market.

Standard tests find that no bubbles are present in the stock price data for the last one hundred years. In contrast., historical accounts, focusing on briefer periods, point to the stock market of 1928-1929 as a classic example of a bubble. While previous studies have restricted their attention to the joint behavior of stock prices and dividends over the course of a century, this paper uses the behavior of the premia demanded on loans collateralized by the purchase of stocks to evaluate the claim that the boom and crash of 1929 represented a bubble. We develop a model that permits us to extract an estimate of the path of the bubble and its probability of bursting in any period and demonstrate that the premium behaves as would be expected in the presence of a bubble in stock prices. We also find that our estimate of the bubble's path has explanatory power when added to the standard cointegrating regressions of stock prices and dividends, in spite of the fact that our stock price and dividend series are cointegrated.

This endeavor is an effort to study the price dynamics of 26 publicly traded companies in the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) during the years 1926-1933 using data (monthly and daily) from the Wharton Research Data Service (WRDS) database. We find evidence against the hypothesis of random walks in stock prices. There was a bubble during the years 1927-29, which began in the fall of 1927. Companies introducing new technologies, such as Radio Corporation of America (RCA), had their price peak first, and led the boom. Companies in traditional sectors had their peaks last, and were followers. In addition, there is significant price undershooting in the aftermath of the crash, in contrast to the typical experimental bubbles. Our results not only reinforce Kindleberger-Minsky hypothesis, but also highlight potential for further research in the realm of financial economic research and policy.