Modern scholarship attributes the depth of the Great Depression largely to
- A
Excessive federal social spending in the 1920s
- B
Excessive immigration restrictions on labor
- Ccheck_circle
Federal Reserve monetary contraction and bank failures, plus international gold-standard rigidity
- D
Recurring oil shocks throughout the 1930s
Explanation
Friedman/Schwartz argued the Fed's failure to act as lender of last resort + bank panics shrank money supply by ~30%. Gold standard prevented monetary expansion until abandonment in 1933.