The Smoot-Hawley Tariff may have exacerbated the monetary crisis through a credit channel (per Rustici and Meltzer): farmers unable to export couldn't repay equipment loans, stressing agricultural-state banks into insolvency and worsening the monetary contraction, though a severe 1930 drought confounds this and cotton data show export shares actually rose as domestic demand fell more.
causalpending
Speaker
Douglas IrwinEvidence Quote
“cotton production fell presumably because of the drought, but domestic demand fell a lot more because of the recession and so... our share of our crops that we were exporting went up”
Created: 6/15/2026, 9:36:56 AM
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