Dissertation deals with the Federal reserve system, which is the central Bank of the United states of America. The dissertation is supposed to analyze monetary politics of FED with regard to the possible connection of this institution with the last financial crisis. Chapter nbr. I. introduces short history of the central banking in the USA, the situation before FED was created, circumstances with the enactment of Federal Reserve act from 1913, followed by foundation of FED and first of all about its task during the period of Great depression in the 30th of the 20th century. Enclosed is the overview of critical economical opinions how the FED was functioning. The second part of the dissertation describes the monetary politics of FED before the crisis years 2000-2007. It evaluates the main steps the FED undertook to prevent or alleviate the incomming crisis. Further it evaluates these steps with recommendations of renowned and respected economists. Next chapter deals with the mortgage market crisis and with the monetary politics of FED between the years 2007-2011. This chapter also describes different situation of FED and European central bank and their monetary politics as a reaction to the mortgage crisis. Fourth and last chapter is aimed at the possible cause of the financial crisis and present development of FED.

This period was marked by severe financial and political economic crisis which is, for its results, considered as one of the most unpleasant in our history. Regarding its devastating consequences, it is very often compared to Great Depression, which afflicted people in 1930. Even if there is one decade dynamic development between these two crises, it is possible to observe several similar parallels. The main target of my work is to answer the question, whether these parallels are really similar, through the use of analysis of individual crisis and also through their comparison to economics of USA and other selected European countries (UK, France, Germany). The first subject of our interest will be the analysis of pre-crisis period, which is basically the principle of the whole work. Afterwards I will examine the process of individual crisis itself, together with reactions from the government. This overall comparison should give us information, whether there are the same processes that characterised the development in interwar time nowadays, or whether this resemblance is fully accidental.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a forma épica na peça We, the People, escrita pelo dramaturgo norte-americano Elmer Rice [1892-1967]. Essa peça, composta por vinte cenas e mais de quarenta personagens, foi escrita em 1932 e encenada em 1933, nos Estados Unidos, dentro de um dos períodos mais conturbados da história norte-americana: a Grande Depressão [1929 até o final dos anos 1930]. Pretende-se analisar a esfera formal de We, the People, dedicando particular atenção aos recursos empregados para a representação de questões sócio-históricas. Considerando-se que essas questões não são representáveis enquanto tais por meio da estrutura dramática convencional, e que pertencem ao âmbito formal do épico, o trabalho tratará de examinar e discutir o uso de recursos épicos de concepção dramatúrgica e seus efeitos dentro da peça. / This work aims at analyzing the epic form in the play We, the People written by the American playwright Elmer Rice [1892-1967]. This play is composed of twenty scenes and more than forty characters; it was written in 1932 and presented in 1933 in the United States of America during one of the most troubled period of the American history: the Great Depression [1929 end of the 1930s]. We intend to analyze the formal aspects of We, the People focusing mostly on the expedients used to represent socio-historical issues. Considering that these issues cannot be represented by using the conventional dramatic structure and that they belong to the epic form, this work will examine and debate the use of epic theater expedients and its effects in the play.

Esta dissertação tem como objetivo a análise do sonho americano em Pins and Needles. Criada na cidade de Nova Iorque em 1937 por dramaturgos ligados ao teatro de esquerda, a peça espalhou-se pelos Estados Unidos, angariou trabalhadores para os sindicatos, influenciou grupos amadores de teatro, parodiou shows populares e satirizou eventos da Grande Depressão, mostrando um humor incomparável. Nos quesitos histórico e cultural, a peça mais popular da década de 1930 é única, por ser representante do apogeu do Movimento Teatral dos Trabalhadores Americanos e da Frente Popular durante o Novo Acordo. Através do que denominamos de os quatro eixos ideológicos do sonho americano, estudamos como o texto dramatúrgico de Pins and Needles, na sua mistura de agitprop e revista musical, questiona se haveria de fato para os trabalhadores igualdade de oportunidades, direito à vida, liberdade e busca da felicidade, (possibilidade de) atuação e mobilidade social como recompensa do trabalho árduo, ajudando-nos a reconceptualizar a ideologia da nação norte-americana. / This dissertation aims at analyzing the American dream in Pins and Needles. Originated in the city of New York in 1937 by playwrights connected to the theater of the left, the play spread throughout the United States, attracted workers to the labor unions, influenced amateur theater groups, parodied popular shows and satirized Great Depression events, by using an incomparable humor. In the historical and cultural requisites, the most popular play in the 1930s is unique, by being the representative of the apogee of the American Workers Theater Movement and of the Popular Front during the New Deal. By observing what we call the four ideological axes of the American dream, we study how the dramaturgical text of Pins and Needles, in its blend of agitprop and musical revue, questions if really there were equality of opportunities, right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, agency and social mobility as a result of hard work to the workers, helping us to reconceptualize the ideology of the American nation.

Between 1915 and 1940, millions of African Americans migrated from the South to cities in the North. “Recovering Green in Bronzeville” examines the ways in which these migrants experienced, perceived, talked about, valued, and shaped these natural and landscaped environments in the interwar years. Taking Chicago as its focal point, this dissertation argues that not only should African Americans be central to narratives of environment and place in the early twentieth century, but also that natural and landscaped environments are central to African American culture. The dissertation’s first part compares and contrasts the environmental resonance of lives left behind in the South with those established in Chicago, particularly with regards to foodways and labor. It asserts that while many African Americans had already become integrated into national industrial networks prior to migration, residence in even the most urban southern city could not have prepared them for Chicago’s densely populated South Side. The dissertation’s second part explores the significance of African American experiences with both urban and rural natural and landscaped environments from roughly 1915 to 1929. It shows how African Americans joined a chorus of late Progressive Era Americans who saw these environments as an antidote to modern city life that produced ill health and delinquency, as well as how race – through the discourses of respectability, uplift, and primitivism – uniquely inflected their approaches to those places. Primarily grounding its analysis in a few specific sites – Chicago’s Washington Park; Idlewild, an African American resort in rural Michigan; and Camp Wabash, a YMCA youth camp in rural Michigan – it also reveals black Chicagoans as a mobile population that regularly accessed the rural North. The dissertation’s third part considers how African Americans’ connections to these same environments evolved during the Depression, adding an analysis of segregated African American Civilian Conservation Corps companies which, with the labor of black Chicagoans, radically altered the landscapes of rural Illinois and Michigan. On the whole, African Americans focused on building communities in natural and landscaped environments separate from whites in a cultural context defined by widespread poverty, New Deal-era politics and agencies, increasing segregation, and diminished migration.

Fondée essentiellement sur l’exploitation des archives de l’Organisation internationale du travail (OIT), cette thèse analyse l’émergence de discours et de pratiques du développement au niveau international entre 1919 et 1949. Elle questionne plusieurs points importants de l’historiographie sur le développement, notamment son cadre chronologique et ses origines idéologiques. Elle se focalise sur les formes concrètes que prend cette coopération technique internationale naissante. Elle étudie en particulier les missions d’assistance technique organisées par le Bureau international du travail jusqu’à la mise en place du Programme élargi d’assistance technique de l’ONU en 1949, qui constitue le premier programme multilatéral de développement de l’après-Seconde Guerre mondiale. Cette thèse accorde donc une attention particulière aux situations d’expertise, aux experts et fonctionnaires internationaux impliqués dans la diffusion de savoirs techniques. Elle invite à renouveler la problématique du développement international dans une perspective sociale. / Based mainly on the exploitation of the ILO archives, this thesis analyzes the emergence of development discourses and practices at the international level between 1919 and 1949. This offers the opportunity to challenge several important presumptions of development historians with regard to the chronology of development and its ideological origins. This thesis focuses on the practical aspects of this emerging international technical cooperation. It analyzes in particular the technical assistance missions organized by the International Labour Office until the implementation of the United Nations’ Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance created in 1949, which was the first multilateral program of international development after World War II. This thesis pays special attention to the situations where ILO expertise played a role and to the international experts and ILO officials involved in the dissemination of technical knowledge. This thesis opens some new perspectives on the problem of international development from a social point of view.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The drastic decline in stock prices on the 24th October 1929 sent a frantic wave of panic across the US. Merely a century later, on the 29th September 2008 another financial crisis hit the globe - this time leaving most countries devastated. The main objective of this study is twofold: 1) to determine whether leading indicators have sufficient predictive capacity to predict global financial crises; and 2) to use the Efficient Market Theory (EMT) and/ or Behavioural Finance Theory (BFT) as a means of developing a theory explaining the potential impact bad public announcements had on the level of investor confidence before the 1929 Great Depression and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. This study was not only designed to qualitatively conceptualise the notion of the term “investor confidence” whilst drawing special attention to its frailty using the 1929 Great Depression and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, but also assist governments, reserve banks and key institutions to develop effective strategies of mitigating the effects of the latter financial crisis as well as provide guidance on how another financial crisis can be prevented. This study extracted bad public announcements from 40 books and 60 journal articles using 6 NBER-based leading economic indicators (LEI) and 4 systematic risk-based leading non-economic indicators (LNEI) in order to: 1) qualitatively assess the extent to which leading indicators can be used to predict global financial crises 3 – 8 months in advance; and 2) use the EMT and/ or BFT to provide an explanation concerning the potential impact that bad public announcements had on the level of investor confidence before the 1929 Great Depression and the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.

Book Review of Fighting Foreclosure: The Blaisdell Case, The Contract Clause, and the Great Depression by John A. Fliter and Derek S. Hoff. University Press of Kansas. 2012. 224 pages. Cloth $34.95 ISBN: 978-0-7006-1871-2. Paper $19.95 ISBN 978-0-7006-1872-9.

History welcomed the screwball comedy genre in 1934, a time where cinema was in urgent need of providing escapism to audiences victim of the Great Depression. Screwball films, therefore, chose to underline the distinction between social classes and to emphasise on the imperfections of the upper class. The following thesis aims to determine how Depression screwballs (screwball comedies released from 1934 to 1938) used their narrative power to establish this distinction between opposed social classes and how this reflects the undeniable importance of an overlooked genre. It is with a socio-historical approach, personal analyses and observations, that the following research has been conducted. In conclusion, it has been recognised that the genre drew its importance, not only in the way it represents social classes but also how it depicts their mutual interactions, therefore forming a significant whole.

Ann Tizia Leitich wrote about America to a Viennese audience as a foreign correspondent with the unique and personal perspective of an immigrant to the United States. Leitich differentiates herself from other Europeans who reported on America in her day by telling of the life of the average working American. In so doing, Leitich uses her work as a foreign correspondent to create a new identity for Austria between the World Wars. Leitich uses America in the 1920's and 1930's as a cultural mirror in which the new Republic of Austria can see itself. Leitich's perspective of America is not only useful to the German-speaking audiences of her time, but also sheds light on America in the interwar period to readers of all backgrounds. Unfortunately, the influence of Leitich's journalism is currently limited to German-speaking audiences. Included are 31 translations of Leitich's articles for the benefit of English-speaking audiences to assist in further analysis of implications of her work.