Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics

Hoover and Wages in the Depression: A Comment on Douglas MacKenzie

The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics
Downloads

Volume 14, No. 4 (Winter 2011)

 

In a recent article appearing in this journal, Douglas MacKenzie (2010) argues that President Hoover’s business conferences artificially propped up wages in the early years of the Depression, aggravating unemployment. MacKenzie’s (2010) critique of Hoover fails on at least two counts: it commits an aggregation fallacy and ignores the vast literature on real wage cyclicality, and it exaggerates a series of historical points on the authority that Hoover had to implement his high-wage policy. Readers of MacKenzie (2010) could also benefit from new research on Hoover’s business conferences by Rose (2010), although MacKenzie (2010) himself certainly cannot be blamed for failing to incorporate such recent research.

CITE THIS ARTICLE

Kuehn, Daniel. “Hoover and Wages in the Depression: A Comment on Douglas MacKenzie.” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics 14, No. 4 (Winter 2011): 442–453.

All Rights Reserved ©
What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. 

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member
Mises Institute