Broken Supersymmetry and Supergravity

We consider the supersymmetric Higgs effect, in which a spin-½ Goldstone fermion is transformed away by a redefinition of the supergravity fields and the spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ gauge field acquires the degrees of freedom appropriate to finite mass. More generally we discuss the consistency and physical applicability of supergravity theories with broken local supersymmetry.