How do I know it will be a steeper fall than in the 1930s? look at the table below (source Nicholas Crafts and Peter Fearon: Depression and Recovery in the 1930s an overview, chapter 1 of The Great Depression of the 1930s: Lessons for Today edited by Crafts and Fearon. The steepest fall then was nearly 7% in one year, from 1931 to 1932. The fall this year 2020 on 2019 will be more like 15%, twice as fast and as big a fall as the 16% that took place during the entirety of the Great Depression. Of course the major policy question now, can we avoid three years in a row of falling output?.
