What and when was the deepest economic collapse in any non-communist, non-wartime, fully industrialized country since the 1930s?
First offer your guess in the comments. Then check the answer.
Economic history trivia question
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Well, in a sense it was a communist-type of collapse. Like Cuba, Poland and the GDR, Finland lost its main communist trading partner over night.
argentina, six or seven years ago?
Japan seems too easy, so I’ll go with Germany, pre WWII
I guessed England in the 1970s before I looked at the answer. I was wrong. As usual.
I was in Finland in December 1992. It was horrid. Unemployment was high inflation was rampant. But Finland had a great safety net and a forward thinking government. So, not only did Finland pull out of its funk, but it did so with aplomb.
That was a lay-up. Give us a hard one!
That was a lay-up. Give us a hard one!
before everyone gave away the answer i was going to guess turkey post iraq I. would turkey count as industrialized?
Mexico
No, not what the answer says. Pretty sure it is Russia.
Well, if this is what happened to Finland after the collapse of its primary trading partner, it certainly doesn’t bode well for Canada’s future.
I have not looked, and I see everyone saying Finland, but I
would note that the unemployment rate in Germany hit 30% in
1933. Maybe industrial production or even GDP went down more
in Finland during the early 90s decline, which was certainly
plenty deep, but I do not think they hit, or even got all that
close, to 30%, indeed, if memory serves me, their unemployment
rate did not top 20%, although it got mighty close, although
what kept them from it may have been a lot of social safety
net government makework jobs that were not available in
Germany in the early 1930s.
Ah, I see. Question is “since the 1930s.” So, indeed, the decline
in the early 1930s in Germany and also in the US and some other
countries easily beat that in Finland, which was only 11%, with a
peak unemployment rate at 18.5%. GDP declines in some of those
countries exceeded 30%, so they were definitely much worse of than
Finland (and, of course, there were also much larger declines in
some of the former Communist states, including Russia, which declines
were the main driver of that of Finland).
ARGH!
I won’t spoil the answer, but that’s cheating! (kinda, check the reasoning for the collapse w/ the hints in the question)
Poorly managed financial deregulation in the 80s and bad macroeconomic policies deepened and prolonged the crisis. It was not just the collapse of the Soviet Union.
One difference between Finland then and all these other basket cases is that Finland devalued! [I remember this because of a small honorarium I got at the time in Finnish Markka.] If you’re in trouble, devalue. If it doesn’t seem to work, just keep doing it! Cheers.
Japan. Now let’s see who’s right.
how can it be no one said post-rhodesia zimbabwe? It went from industrialized (albeit industrial farming) to literally stone-age and 3 gazillion % inflation in 20 years?
dang.
One sidenote about the definitions: Finland was maybe non-communist but certainly heavily-statist. In the early 1990s the public expenditures accounted for around 50% of GDP and regulation run rampant. Speaking of the latter, we Finns – compared to some other people – actually adhere to rules and authoritarian policy wisdoms. This “by the book” ethos results in higher effective government control of the economy than hard figures would imply. Fatal conceit seems to be alive and well here.
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