Relief during the great depression in Australia and America

Abstract

I compare and contrast the relief efforts in response to the extraordinary employment of the Great Depression in the U.S. and Australia. The effectiveness of relief spending in America at the local level is discussed with reference to a series of studies that I have performed with a series of co-authors. To compare the U.S. demographic results with the impact of relief spending in Australia, I develop a panel data set for the Australian states from 1929 through 1939 and then estimate the relationship between relief spending by the states and various demographic measures, including infant mortality, the death rate, the crude birth rate, marriage rates, and the divorce rate. Show more