Causes of the Great Depression
Second, there are the monetarists, who believe that the Great Depression started as an ordinary recession, but that significant policy mistakes by monetary authorities (especially the Federal Reserve) caused a shrinking of the money supply which greatly exacerbated the economic situation, causing a recession to descend into the Great Depression. Related to this explanation are those who point to debt deflation causing those who borrow to owe ever more in real terms.
Clarence Barber
Effects of the Great Depression in his youth motivated Barber to study economics . In 1978, Barber wrote ""On the Causes of the Great Depression"" where he made a link between demographics and economics. He cited how demand for housing in the U.S. began to drop beginning in 1926. Early in 1929, demand for housing dropped precipitously. The stock market crash in October of that same year was preceded by a decline in demand, Barber argues, that began with a lower formation of households concomitant with lower rates of marriage. After World War I, a birth dearth had resulted; a dearth that demographers have shown did not end until World War II ended. (see Causes of the Great Depression)
The death of young men as soldiers in World War I, coupled with the Flu Pandemic of 1918 wrought their eventual harm to the economy as a whole. The increase in secularization during the 'Roaring Twenties', as automobiles became widespread, and availability of electricity and electrical appliances and such, may have had its effect too. Barber showed in ""On Causes..."" that lower demand for mortgages and other loans preceded by some years a shortage of loan availability as the Great Depression deepened towards 1933.