<P> In addition to the debt deflation there was a component of productivity deflation that had been occurring since The Great Deflation of the last quarter of the 19th century . There may have also been a continuation of the correction to the sharp inflation caused by WW I . </P> <P> Oil prices reached their all - time low in the early 1930s as production began from the East Texas Oil Field, the largest field ever found in the lower 48 states . With the oil market oversupplied prices locally fell to below ten cents per barrel . </P> <P> In the first three decades of the 20th century productivity and economic output surged due in part to electrification, mass production and the increasing motorization of transportation and farm machinery . Electrification and mass production techniques such as Fordism permanently lowered the demand for labor relative to economic output . By the late 1920s the resultant rapid growth in productivity and investment in manufacturing meant there was a considerable excess production capacity . </P> <P> Sometime after the peak of the business cycle in 1923, more workers were displaced by productivity improvements than growth in the employment market could meet, causing unemployment to slowly rise after 1925 . Also, the work week fell slightly in the decade prior to the depression . Wages did not keep up with productivity growth, which led to the problem of underconsumption . </P>

What was an economic development that contributed to the great depression
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