This paper surveys recent literature in economic history that emphasize various structural problems in the interwar period as the causes of the Great Depression. First, we discuss the analyses, most notably by Olney, on the structural increase in consumption expenditure on durable goods and associated increase of household in-debtness during the 1920s in the U.S. Such a structural change in household balance sheets might have deepened the decline of consumption in the early stage of the Great Depression, 1930-1933. Second, we summarize the studies on institutional changes of the US financial system from late 19the century to the 1920s. Structural change in the financial system was one of the main causes of disintermediation in the interwar period. Disintermediation and the absence of appropriate regulatory changes in the banking sector had weakened the US banking sector in the interwar period and eventually resulted in banking crises in early 1930s. Such studies about the interwar U.S. economy that emphasize structural problems will provide important hints for our analyses of the prolonged Japanese economic slump in 1990s.
