Norwegian Recovery in the 1930s

The article opposes the view put forward by Einar Lie, Erlend Bjortvedt and Christian Venneslan that increased exports following the breakdown of the gold standard in late 1931 explain the recovery after the depression of the 1930s. Increased exports in the period 1931 to 1934 were mainly due to the great lock-out in 1931, which put thousands of workers out of employment, and not to the improvement in trading conditions. The volume of world trade fell dramatically in this period. Furthermore, statistics show that the product in the manufacturing industries in the 1930s increased much more than the value of exports. It was the home market that supplied new jobs in this period, not the export sector of the economy. Allowing for the effects of the lock-out, the low point of the depression was 1932, not 1931, and the evidence shows that 1934 was the first year of substantial recovery. This accords with the considerable transformation that took place in the home industries at the time, with a transition from production of raw materials for export to finished products for the home market. The process was largely initiated by the depression and had to take time. In many cases it involved the emergence of small industrial plants based on new technology and new products, plants that represented a renewal of the Norwegian economy.