The Great Depression was characterized by widespread fiscal policy mistakes in the form of a contractionary or insufficiently expansionary fiscal stance. Despite this general conclusion, there were large differences in the conduct of fiscal policy between countries. I find that a higher degree of fiscal capacity helped countries run less procyclical fiscal policies by allowing them to borrow more extensively. Lower borrowing costs only partially explain this finding. Taken together, the results indicate that interwar governments were constrained in their policies by past investments in fiscal capacity, and not just by Gold Standard membership, ideology, and inadequate knowledge, as commonly held in the literature.

中文翻译：

---

财政政策受到限制：大萧条时期的财政能力和紧缩政策

大萧条的特点是普遍存在财政政策错误，表现为财政紧缩或扩张不足。尽管得出了这一总体结论，但各国财政政策的实施仍存在很大差异。我发现，较高程度的财政能力可以帮助各国更广泛地借贷，从而减少顺周期的财政政策。较低的借贷成本只能部分解释这一发现。总而言之，结果表明，两次世界大战期间政府的政策受到过去财政能力投资的限制，而不仅仅是文献中普遍认为的金本位会员资格、意识形态和知识不足的限制。