Consumption in ihe Time ofthe Great Depression in Light of Slovene Contemporary Press

Abstract

In the following article the author will demonstrate the state of consumption in Europe, the world and in Yugoslavia or the Drava Banate in the time of the Great Depression, on the basis of reports published in expert and major daily press and by means of what were at the time immediate indicators of consumption - especially volume of trade and production as well as trade in representative goods at global markets - and partly on the basis of few consumption reports. Continuous recession was characteristic of consumption in this period. In the - Europe, struggling with shortage and crisis of consumption and the agrarian sector ever since the end of World War I, thus even since before the onset of the Great Depression - the phenomenon of the Great Depression even worsened what had already been a difficult economic position. In 1932 partial tendencies of economic activity revitalisation due to the balancing of the disproportion between supply and demand for certain kinds of goods became evident, while the year 1933 represented the turning point. At that time the level of trade and. consequently, consumption reached the lowest point globally, therefore the trends reversed and pointed upwards. The turning point in Yugoslavia occurred later, in 1934, when the bottom of the crisis was reached.