Whereas in 1970 most of the large EC countries were still recording real growth rates in excess of 5%, after the two oil crises there was an appreciable slowdown in economic expansion and at the beginning of the eighties even a real contraction. At the same time unemployment increased...

In the context of the ongoing financial and economic crisis reference is frequently made to the Great Depression of the 1930s and fears are voiced that we may have embarked on a similar path. This article looks at the conditions prevailing back then and compares them with the present economic...