Long Depression
Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, author of "A Monetary History of the United States", on the other hand, blamed this prolonged economic crisis on the imposition of a new gold standard, part of which he referred to by its traditional name, The Crime of 1873. This forced shift into a currency whose supply was limited by nature, unable to expand with demand, caused a series of economic and monetary contractions that plagued the entire period of the Long Depression. Murray Rothbard, in his book "History of Money and Banking of the United States", argues that the long depression was only a misunderstood recession since real wages and production were actually increasing throughout the period. Like Friedman, he attributes falling prices to the resumption of a deflationary gold standard in the U.S. after the Civil War.
Great Depression
Many economists have argued that the sharp decline in international trade after 1930 helped to worsen the depression, especially for countries significantly dependent on foreign trade. In a 1995 survey of American economic historians, two-thirds agreed that the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act at least worsened the Great Depression. Most historians and economists partly blame the American Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act (enacted June 17, 1930) for worsening the depression by seriously reducing international trade and causing retaliatory tariffs in other countries. While foreign trade was a small part of overall economic activity in the U.S. and was concentrated in a few businesses like farming, it was a much larger factor in many other countries. The average "ad valorem" rate of duties on dutiable imports for 1921–25 was 25.9% but under the new tariff it jumped to 50% during 1931–35. In dollar terms, American exports declined over the next four (4) years from about $5.2 billion in 1929 to $1.7 billion in 1933; so, not only did the physical volume of exports fall, but also the prices fell by about 1/3 as written. Hardest hit were farm commodities such as wheat, cotton, tobacco, and lumber.