Dennis R. Starleaf

Macroeconomic Policies and Their Impact Upon the Farm Sector

Clearly, the ultimate goal of macroeconomic policy activism was not achieved. On the other hand, the performance of the U.S. economy in the postwar period has not been bad. In fact, it looks very good, in most respects, when compared to the performance of the economy during periods of similar length during the years before World War II. One of the most notable achievements of the postwar economy-due to, or in spite of, policy activism, depending upon whose arguments you accept-has been the moderation of business cycle contractions. We experienced seven such contractions between 1947 and 1980, and all, save the contraction of 1973-75, have to be classified as mild if not very mild. Whether the contraction of 1973-75 should be classified as severe or mild is debatable.