Production and ideology in the soviet union

Abstract

A fundamental objective of business planning in the Soviet Union is to ensure a rate of growth which considerably exceeds that attained by the ‘capitalist’ powers. At the 20th party congress this aim was once again reaffirmed. In the general resolution adopted, the congress deemed it vital to pursue with the utmost vigour the struggle to achieve the primary economic task of the Soviet Union, i.e, to overtake and outstrip the most highly developed capitalist countries in production per head of population, and to do so within the shortest possible time and by means of peaceful economic competition.     

Swedish Historical National Accounts, 1800–2000: Principles and Implications of a New Generation

Abstract

A new set of data and estimates of historical national accounts for Sweden is concluded with the project Structural Change in the Swedish Economy, 1800–1980: Construction and Analysis of National Product Series. This article provides a short overview of earlier efforts, beginning in the 1930s, to construct historical national accounts and an account of the present project. The new estimates resulted in partly new representations of economic growth and change. They are also compared with earlier data. Furthermore, effects of the deflation techniques ( i.e., double deflation) are analyzed by comparing the series with those resulting from single deflation. Finally, structural changes are analyzed using modern time series analysis.     

New Borders and Trade Flows: A Gravity Model Analysis of the Baltic States

The objective of this paper is to provide evidence on the effects of an economic and political union by studying the trade flows of the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania after the breakup of the Soviet Union. We specify and estimate a gravity model of exports for the Nordic countries which enables us to determine the size and direction of trade flows in the Baltic states had they not been affected by the political institutions of the Soviet Union. Our results suggest that Baltic foreign trade was not only reduced significantly but also diverted to the members of the former Soviet Union. Consistent with our estimates, we also find that these consequences of the former political union are quickly dissipating, and the Baltic countries are increasing their share of exports to the European Union and the U.S.     

计划经济体制下经济增长的解释

计划经济,在目前经济自由化、经济全球化浪潮中似乎不再受人欢迎,但全面否定计划经济,显然是不符合辩证法、也不符合历史的。苏联经济成功的一面充分说明了计划经济对可持续性的经济增长来说虽然有许多的弊端,但仍有其不可替代的优点。或许,对于自然资源丰富的苏联而言,其解体最主要的直接原因是民众的基本生活不能得到保障、已有福利水平不可持续,而深一层的原因是其极不对称的谈判势力结构。     

Research into the distribution of prosperity. A Danish comment on some Swedish contributions

Abstract

Economic historians studying the very recent past have in the 19505 and 1960s to a large extent chosen to deal with problems connected with economic growth. This is doubtless explained by the pattem of development in Westem economies where govemments showed themselves capable of bringing productive capacity and demand so closely into balance that unemployment was reduced to a fraction of its interwar level. The whole problem of distribution—who should bear how much of the consequences of unemployment and of the other defects of society—accordingly became a secondary consideration in economic and political debate. In its place there was growing interest in how rapidly productive capacity could be raised, and the total amount of goods and services available to the public thus increased. This interest was undoubtedly stimulated by the successful industrialisation of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, the liberation of the colonies after the Second World War, and the growth of intemational communications, all emphasising the problem of what determines vigorous and widespread expansion in national production. Many economic historians in Scandinavia and elsewhere were influenced by economists such as Harrod and Demar, Cobb and Douglas, Kaldor, Solow and Rostow who attempted to answer the question. In both economics and economic history an increasing proportion of the available research capacity was devoted to projects connected with economic growth.     

前苏联加速开发西伯利亚的历史背景

前苏联加速开发西伯利亚是在美苏“冷战”的国际背景下进行的，具有很强的军事目的；开发西伯利亚的国内原因是要通过调整生产力布局，以增强经济实力，为称霸世界做准备。苏联政府十分重视西伯利亚在实现全苏经济战略总目标中的作用，把加速开发西伯利亚看作是实现全苏经济战略的重要措施。     

The first 35 years of Soviet living standards: Secular growth and conjunctural crises in a time of famines

This article investigates welfare and living standards in the Soviet Union during the great crises of the first 35 years of Soviet power, during which the USSR experienced 5 major famines. It reviews the classic literature on traditional measures of Soviet consumption and recent critiques of them. It discusses the nature of welfare and welfare indicators, the reliability of Soviet statistical indicators on welfare, and it charts the dimensions of the groups in Soviet society that were most vulnerable to these welfare crises. A range of welfare indicators covering nutrition, mortality and stature are critically examined both regarding their immediate and long-term consequences and the groups affected.     

Birgit Karlsson,Egenintresse eller samhällsintresse,Nazityskland och svensk skogsindustri 1933–1945

Abstract

In Vol. XV (1967) of this journal, Alan S. Milward and Jorg-Jöhannes Jäger published criticisms of my article on Swedish iron are exports to Nazi Germany.¹ Turning first to Milward's contribution, this is based on the assumption that the German economy was a ‘blitzkrieg war economy’ in the period preceding the attack upon the Soviet Union. This view, which has been expressed before by B. H. Klein, undoubtedly brings a number of valuable refinements into the hitherto exaggerated estimates of the level of German armaments at the outbreak of the Second World War.² But when he goes on to say that ‘in such a war economy all considerations of potential armaments-producing capacity were rejected in favour of present armaments-producing capacity’,³ Milward palpably oversimplifies a complex problem. In fact, the demand for an armaments programme ‘in depth’, to quote General Thomas, did make itself heard long before the autumn of 1941.     

Is Globalization Reducing Poverty and Inequality?

Over the past 20 years or so India, China, and the rest of East Asia, experienced fast economic growth and falls in the poverty rate, Latin America stagnated, the former Soviet Union, Central and Eastern Europe, and sub-Saharan Africa regressed. But what are the net trends? The neoliberal argument says that world poverty and income inequality fell over the past two decades for the first time in more than a century and a half, thanks to the rising density of economic integration across national borders. The evidence therefore confirms that globalization in the context of the world economic regime in place since the end of Bretton Woods generates more “mutual benefit” than “conflicting interests.” This paper questions the empirical basis of the neoliberal argument.     

Unemployment in Denmark in the 1930s

Abstract

This paper examines three estimates of Danish unemployment in the 1930s by Maddison (1964), Hansen (1974) and Pedersen (1977). Secondly, two new estimates of the Danish unemployment are presented based on the available monthly data from the unemployment [unds and on the official registration of unemployment outside the funds. The new estimates of the early 1930s are in between the estimates of Pedersen and Maddison, while it is argued that both Maddison and Pedersen overrate the increase in unemployment in the later part of the period.     

新制度经济学视角下的苏联经济史——对我国政治经济体制改革的启示

本文透过新制度经济学的视角对苏联经济史进行概要分析与研究,特别是运用诺思的制度变迁理论对斯大林模式的僵化导致苏联国民经济低绩效进行历史主义的分析论证,旨在揭示制度变迁与制度创新对经济绩效和经济增长的重要作用。同时,也从另一个角度证实了中国30年改革开放及一系列制度变迁对我国经济发展的积极推动作用。笔者希望通过对苏联经济发展史的制度性分析,能够对当前中国政治经济体制改革有所启示。在我国的改革与制度变迁的历程中,应发挥市场机制的积极作用和社会主义制度的优越性,在政治经济体制不断改革与创新的背景下,推动国民经济的持续、健康发展。     

China's GDP expenditure accounts

China's GDP expenditure accounts present an alternative to the official value-added and production-method accounts used to report growth and per-capita living standards. Indeed, in a strong sense, expenditure accounts are the best measure of an economy's output, because they measure what really comes out of the economy that is used by citizens, business, government, and the rest of the world. In fact, expenditure accounts are the preferred GDP reporting methods for most developed economics. However, in China's case, measurement of the components of expenditure GDP has significant flaws, which affect its use to check official reports of GDP growth and level. Still, understanding expenditure GDP, warts and all, strengthens our sense of China's GDP reporting accuracy, as well as the accuracy of outside estimates of China's purchasing power parity (PPP) GDP.     

Why did socialist economies fail? The role of factor inputs reconsidered

This article presents new estimates for investment and new growth accounts for three socialist economies between 1950 and 1989. Government statistics reported distorted measures for both the rate and the trajectory of productivity growth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Researchers have benefited from revised output data, but have continued to use official statistics on capital input, or estimated capital stock from official investment data. Investment levels and rates of capital accumulation were much lower than officially claimed and over‐reporting worsened over time. A setback in factor accumulation—both investment in equipment and labour input—contributed very significantly to the socialist growth failure of the 1980s.     

前事不忘,后事之师——从苏联亡党亡国的教训看当今中国民主社会主义思潮的斗争

社会主义大国苏联解体是由于其领导人放弃科学社会主义,推行了一条错误的改革道路——民主社会主义,最终导致苏联亡党亡国。在当今中国建设有自己特色社会主义的进程中,民主社会主义者采用否定共产党的执政地位、鼓吹私有化、抹煞资本主义和社会主义区别的策略同科学社会主义进行斗争,本质是试图重演发生在前苏联的历史,和平演变中国的社会主义为资本主义。     

Provincial Development in China: Lessons from EU Regional Policy Experience

Abstract

This article evaluates and compares regional development in the Chinese provinces and in the regions of the European Union (EU) countries. Development efforts in southern Italy, northeast England and eastern Germany are reviewed along with EU, Community-wide regional development programmes. Equity concerns suggest promotion of regional policy, but the pursuit of maximum national economic growth would avoid it, since it sacrifices some economic growth. The impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic investments on individual Chinese provinces is compared with their impact in Europe. There is an implicit contrast between public sector regional development programs and more effective private foreign direct investments.     

The ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ in the discourses of the Central Asian states: political rhetoric of growth and academic prognostication

As official discourses throughout Central Asia reflect, China’s ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ has become very attractive to the local regimes. They perceive it as corresponding to the urgent need to achieve social and economic growth and maintain alternatives for international cooperation. Political elites have incorporated the BRI-agenda into their rhetoric of growth and actively promote the idea of BRI’s ‘conjugation’ with local development plans. The success of the initiative, however, differs from state to state.

The BRI-related narratives of local expert communities mainly correspond to the goals set by the officials. At the same time, local experts elucidate important issues, such as BRI’s impact on national security, Chinese migration, and public discontent. These elucidations may adjust the official stand towards the BRI. The possibility of such adjustments, varying in different Central Asian states, depends in each case on the openness of a regime to scholarly prognostications.

Abbreviations: BRI - Belt and Road Initiative; CDA - Critical Discourse-Analysis; DHA - Discourse-Historical Approach; SCO - Shanghai Cooperation Organisation; EAEU - Eurasian Economic Union; TAPI -Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (pipeline)     

The bases of Soviet power in the Third World

This paper examines the process by which the Soviet Union has attempted to establish, maintain and extend its influence in the various regions of the Third World. The author traces the evolution of these relations through the stage of establishing diplomatic relations during the decolonization period and that of the USSR's attempts to harmonize its approach to trade relations with its own strategy of economic development. However, the USSR's natural economic ties with the South were very weak and it therefore chose to favour military assistance over economic aid – an option which it felt would create stronger links of dependency between the recipient countries of the South and the USSR, and thus would reinforce the bases of Soviet power around the world.     

Structural change in the Russian far east: The implications for trade and factor markets

This study compares actual directions of structural adjustment in the Russian Far East since the collapse of the former Soviet Union with estimated directions of adjustment that would be predicted to follow an opening of the region to the world market. How would moving to world prices affect the competitiveness of individual sectors of the Russian Far East? This author estimates the impact of changing terms of trade by revaluing a 1987 input-output table for the Russian Far East by price relatives between internal Soviet prices and world prices estimated by David Tarr [1992]. These estimates measure apparent competitiveness of each sector at world prices and identify four sectors of the Russian Far East—food processing, forest products, light industry, and the chemical industry—as negative value added sectors at world prices. However, actual short-run directions of adjustment in 1992–94 are only partly consistent with the directions predicted in the model. Measured gains from trade are strong on the import side but not on the export side.     

New borders: Evidence from the former Soviet Union

New Borders: Evidence from the Former Soviet Union. — We study the effects of trade barriers and the persistence of past linkages on trade flows in the former Soviet Union (FSU). Estimating a gravity equation on 1987–1996 trade between nine Russian regions and fourteen FSU republics, we find that Russian regions traded nearly twice as much with each other as with republics in the reform period (1994–1996). In contrast, they did not trade significantly more with each other than with republics in the prereform period (1987–1990). Our results suggest that the bias towards domestic trade in the reform period is primarily a result of tariffs. We also find that past linkages, such as infrastructure, production and consumption chains, and business networks, have limited the reorientation of trade.     

浅议苏联特色检察制度

我国社会主义事业的发展较多参照了苏联的模式和经验,包括法律制度建设。因而,全面认识前苏联的特色司法制度,深入了解其司法经验和模式,对于我国探索社会主义法治建设道路有重要意义。本文尝试对前苏联特色检察制度加以研究和总结,力求为我国法治建设贡献绵薄之力。