The Smoot-Hawley Tariff was only slightly deflationary (by attracting gold to the US) but its effect was too small to cause the 30% world price implosion, because the trade imbalance at the time was relatively small; the deflation must be traced primarily to gold-standard central bank policies.

causalpending

Speaker

Douglas Irwin

Evidence Quote

the impact on trade was just not enough to sort of cause a 30% implosion in world prices

Source

Douglas Irwin on the Great Depression and the Gold Standard 10/11/2010EconTalk
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:36:56 AM

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