The Economic History Podcast with Fexingo: Past Recessions, Booms, and Lessons from History

In May 1842, Philadelphia’s banks collectively suspended specie payments, triggering a chain reaction that reshaped American banking law for decades. At the center was a single institution: the Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania, a reincarnation of Nicholas Biddle’s former national bank, which had collapsed under its own weight. This episode unpacks how the suspension of convertibility — ba...

In 1914, as World War I erupted in Europe, global cocoa prices collapsed by nearly 70 percent in a matter of weeks. The British colony of the Gold Coast — today's Ghana — had just enjoyed a decade-long cocoa boom that made it the world's largest producer. Small farmers who had invested everything in cocoa trees suddenly faced ruin. This episode traces how a single commodity crash reshaped West Afr...

In this episode of The Economic History Podcast, Lucas and Luna revisit the 1935 Banking Act—the landmark legislation that transformed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from a temporary emergency measure into a permanent pillar of American finance. They focus on the political battle behind the scenes: how President Franklin D. Roosevelt, initially skeptical of deposit insurance, was persua...

In March 1932, thousands of unemployed auto workers marched from Detroit to Dearborn demanding jobs and relief from Henry Ford. The Ford Hunger March ended in gunfire — four marchers killed, dozens wounded — but its economic legacy is often overlooked. Lucas and Luna revisit the march's context: Ford's $7 day, the assembly line speed-ups, and the collapse of consumer demand that turned Detroit int...

In 1921, the US economy experienced one of its steepest contractions on record: GDP dropped nearly 9 percent, unemployment spiked to over 11 percent, and wholesale prices collapsed by 37 percent. Yet unlike the Great Depression that followed, the 1921-22 depression was remarkably short-lived, lasting just 18 months. Lucas and Luna examine how the Federal Reserve and the Harding administration resp...

In February 1797, a French invasion scare triggered a run on British banks that forced the government to suspend gold payments for 24 years. This episode unpacks how the Bank of England's decision to break the gold standard — issuing paper currency without redemption — actually stabilised the economy during the Napoleonic Wars. We trace the story from the landing at Fishguard to the 1819 return to...

In 1894, a populist march of unemployed workers known as Coxey's Army converged on Washington D.C. demanding federal jobs programs. This episode explores how that protest, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey, challenged laissez-faire orthodoxy and presaged New Deal-era policies. We trace the economic desperation of the 1893 panic—when unemployment hit 18 percent—and how Coxey's proposal for a $500...

In 1836, President Andrew Jackson issued the Specie Circular, an executive order requiring land payments to the federal government be made in gold or silver, not paper banknotes. Lucas and Luna examine how this well-intentioned attempt to curb land speculation and rein in state-chartered banks instead triggered a chain reaction of bank runs, credit collapses, and a five-year depression. They trace...

In 1770, a catastrophic famine killed an estimated ten million people in Bengal, roughly a third of its population. But the East India Company, then the effective ruler of the region, initially responded by actually increasing land taxes to meet revenue targets. Lucas and Luna examine how this policy disaster unfolded, why Company officials prioritised short-term profits over human life, and how t...

In October 1907, a failed attempt to corner the copper market triggered a devastating bank run that froze the US financial system. With no central bank, J.P. Morgan personally organized the rescue, summoning New York's top bankers to his library and forcing them to fund a bailout. But the panic exposed a fatal flaw: the US had no lender of last resort. Lucas and Luna trace the cascade from the Kni...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna revisit the 1873 maize price collapse, a forgotten agricultural shock that devastated American farmers, triggered a wave of railroad bankruptcies, and accelerated the shift toward grain futures markets. They explore how a bumper harvest in the Midwest collided with European demand destruction after the Franco-Prussian War, driving corn prices from $1.10 to 40 cents...

In 1933, the US government launched the Silver Purchase Act, a policy intended to boost the silver mining industry and help western states during the Great Depression. But the law backfired spectacularly. Lucas and Luna dig into the specifics: how the government's fixed price of 64.5 cents per ounce created a massive arbitrage opportunity, led to a flood of Chinese silver exports, destabilized the...

In March 1980, Fed Chair Paul Volcker imposed direct credit controls on consumer lending — a tool never used before or since by the Federal Reserve. The result was a sudden, violent collapse in spending that sent GDP plunging 8 percent in one quarter. Lucas and Luna trace how these controls worked, why they were so disruptive, and how the backlash reshaped the political limits of monetary policy....

In 1936, Congress passed the Robinson-Patman Act, a Depression-era law that made it illegal for large retailers like chain stores to negotiate lower wholesale prices than smaller competitors. It was a direct attack on A&P, the dominant grocery chain of the era, which had used its buying power to undercut mom-and-pop shops. The law's supporters framed it as defending small business against monopoly...

In the spring of 1927, the Mississippi River overflowed its banks in what remains the most destructive river flood in American history. More than 27,000 square miles were submerged, 630,000 people were displaced, and the economic toll exceeded one-third of the federal budget at the time. But the real story is how the flood reshaped the way America thinks about disaster relief, federal responsibili...

In 1951, Britain's Labour government nationalised the steel industry, triggering a constitutional crisis, a legal battle, and a market panic that ultimately undid the entire nationalisation program. This episode dives into the specific mechanics of the 1951 Iron and Steel Act: how the government paid £240 million in compensation bonds, how the stock market reacted with a 12 percent drop in steel s...

In 1873, a single railroad company's default on $300 million in debt—roughly $7.5 trillion in today's GDP share—triggered a five-year global depression that rewrote banking regulation and labor relations across the Atlantic. Lucas and Luna trace how Jay Cooke & Company's collapse over Northern Pacific bonds turned a post-Civil War boom into the Long Depression, forcing the U.S. back onto the gold...

In 1954, a CIA-backed coup in Guatemala overthrew democratically elected president Jacobo Árbenz. The trigger? His land reform law threatened United Fruit Company's vast holdings. But the economic shockwaves went far beyond bananas. This episode unpacks how the coup destroyed a promising experiment in economic sovereignty, replaced it with decades of military rule, and set a template for Cold War...

In this episode of The Economic History Podcast, Lucas and Luna examine the economic catastrophe of the 1930s Dust Bowl, a decade-long disaster that turned 100 million acres of Great Plains farmland into dust. They focus on the soil conservation policies that emerged from the crisis, particularly the creation of the Soil Conservation Service in 1935. Lucas explains how poor farming practices—over-...

In Episode 60, Lucas and Luna revisit the 1982 Mexican debt crisis—the moment a single phone call from Mexico's finance minister triggered a global banking panic and permanently changed how emerging markets borrow. They walk through the numbers: $80 billion in foreign debt, 100 percent inflation, the sudden nationalization of Mexico's banks. They explain why this crisis mattered far beyond Latin A...

In 1914, the outbreak of World War I triggered a financial panic that threatened to shut down the New York Stock Exchange and cripple the US banking system. With European investors pulling gold and selling American stocks, the newly created Federal Reserve had not yet opened its doors. This episode explores the improvised solution: emergency currency issued under the Aldrich-Vreeland Act, which al...

In this episode of The Economic History Podcast, Lucas and Luna explore the Florida land boom of the 1920s — a speculative frenzy in real estate that collapsed two years before the 1929 stock market crash. They examine the role of easy credit, out-of-state speculators, and the rise of 'binder boys' who flipped lots sight unseen. The episode focuses on the bust of 1926, when a hurricane and a railr...

In 1819, the young United States experienced its first major financial crisis — a land bubble fueled by easy credit from the Second Bank of the United States, a collapse in cotton prices, and a wave of bank failures. Lucas and Luna walk through the mechanics of the panic, from the speculative land purchases in the Mississippi Valley to the sudden contraction that left farmers and merchants destitu...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna examine the collapse of Overend, Gurney & Co in 1866 — the bank that was 'too big to fail' before the phrase existed. They trace how a single discount house, the largest in England, grew so dominant that its failure triggered a run on the entire London banking system and forced the Bank of England to refuse a bailout. The episode walks through the specific numbers:...

This episode of The Economic History Podcast dives into America's first financial crisis—the Panic of 1792—and how it shaped the young nation's banking system. Lucas and Luna explore the role of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, the speculative bubble in bank stocks, and the crash that nearly destroyed the new federal government. They unpack the origins of the Bank of the United States, the r...