Below is the prime loan rate to the major banks, from the Federal Reserve, from 1950. I heard FRB can change the rate from 1913. Is there any source of rate before 1913? I guess 1930's has high interest rate during the depression.
Quandl and newyorkfed only have fed funds back to 1971. Http://www.globalfinancialdata.com have fixed income data back to 1520!
I saw a movie something like "Sam Adams" for the story about 1770's. He went to Holland (probably strongest country at that time???) to loan money with interest of 6%. Of course, it is before he became president.
Why would you think that government interest rates would be high during a depression? T Bill yields went below zero in 1933. Here are interest rate charts back to 1919. http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2014/012614.html
Usually with low interest rate people like loan and makes bubble. Most depression or recession follow after the bubble. In 1929 before the Great depression, I heard 10% cash+ 90% loan possible to buy a stock. ********************************* Thanks for the link. I heard that average interest rate was roughly 6% for the modern capitalism history of 400 years(from appearance of stock market in Netherlands), as the link support it. In the last 100 years (after the FRB responsible for interest rate), 1919, 1929, 1970 and 1980 are bigger than 10%. Since roughly there has been four times (bigger than 10%) over the last 100 years, there is some chance to be another 10% in the next some years. ********************************* In the above link, see from 1934 to 1941. Is it similar to the graph from 2008 to 2015, isn't it? So during the last 100 years, there has been TWO times with low interest rate (<1%) for SEVEN YEARS LENGTH.