This page accompanies my video “No, World War II Did Not Help the Economy”:
This excellent presentation by Robert Higgs leaves the conventional wisdom in shreds:
It is Professor Higgs who has done more than anyone to force economists (forget the historians, who are hopeless) to rethink their thoughtless acceptance of the alleged prosperity of World War II. His pioneering article on the subject is “Wartime Prosperity? A Reassessment of the U.S. Economy in the 1940s,” which originally appeared in the Journal of Economic History in 1992.
See also Depression, War, and Cold War (originally published by Oxford University Press in 2006), also by Professor Higgs.
Finally, the subject of the alleged prosperity during World War II is one of my 33 Questions About American History You’re Not Supposed to Ask.
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