Over $1.1 billion in loans provided by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and Public Works Administration to 50 U.S. railroads between 1932 and 1939. It was created by Gertjan Verdickt to analyze the effects of these bailouts on employment, wages, firm debt, and bond default.
Use Cases
- Analyze the relationship between bailout amounts and subsequent changes in firm debt for the 50 railroads.
- Estimate the impact of government loans on the average wage of railroad employees during the Great Depression.
- Investigate potential spillover effects on manufacturing firms located close to bailed-out railroads.
- Assess the correlation between bailout receipt and the likelihood of bond defaults for the recipient firms.
Strengths
- Covers a specific, significant historical intervention involving over $1.1 billion in loans.
- Focuses on a well-defined set of 50 U.S. railroad firms.
- Provides data for a critical 7-year period from 1932 to 1939 during the Great Depression.
Limitations
- The specific data columns, sample data, and row count are unknown, limiting detailed assessment.
- As an archival historical dataset, it may lack granular time-series or firm-level financial details.
- The analysis is confined to a specific historical context, limiting generalizability to modern bailouts.
Provenance
- Source
- ICPSR Harvested Dataverse
- Collection Method
- Archival data compilation, likely from historical government and corporate records.
- Time Range
- 1932 to 1939
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- United States