These correspond to an economy that closes nine and fifty percent of the gap to usual employment in three years, respectively. These regressions are useful as descriptions of the data only. But as descriptions they are powerful. Alternative propagation mechanisms that give increased persistence to downturns appear to be at work. Each paper in Eichengreen and Hatton presents its own distinctive point of view on the question of why Depression unemployment in the country it studies was or was not extraordinarily high and persistent, and as a result the book is sprawling-as is inevitable in conference volumes.
Authors stress that France appears very different from Britain.
They stress that Australia's labor market adjustment process bears little resemblance to that of the United States. Readers must extract the common themes and contrasts of the interwar unemployment experience by themselves. Government-generated unemployment was widespread. Thomas cites Eichengreen's earlier work, which presented a best estimate that some two or three percentage points of unemployment in 1929-32 could be attributed to the operation of the relief system. Men receiving the standard unemployment benefit in February 1931 had on average experienced 8.6 different spells of employment during the past year, working an average of 151 days.