EUR.GROWTH: Soviet Industrial Production, 1928 to 1955: Real

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                ABSTRACTS IN ECONOMIC HISTORY
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Name: Mark Harrison
Email: Mark.Harrison@warwick.ac.uk
Institution: University of Warwick

Co-author: none

Title: Soviet Industrial Production, 1928 to 1955: Real Growth and Hidden
Inflation

Internet Address of abstracted work:
http://extra.idealibrary.com/production/jcec/2000/28/1/jcec.1999.1626/1626a.

By mail:
Department of Economics
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL
England

Language: English

Abstract:
The mechanism of hidden inflation in Soviet industrial growth statistics
between 1928 and 1950 is described. Hidden inflation arose when new
products were substituted for old ones. Substitution biases in Soviet and
Western growth estimates are compared; the extent of hidden inflation in
the Soviet figures is estimated. The view that all Soviet growth series
were exaggerated is qualified; the presumption that the lower a figure, the
more reliable it must be is overturned. The Moorsteen paradox, hidden
inflation in industry as a whole, but none in machine building where
product innovation was most rapid, is explained.

Bibliography: Harrison, Mark. "Soviet Industrial Production, 1928 to
1955: Real Growth and Hidden Inflation." Journal of Comparative Economics,
vol. 28, no. 1, 2000, pp. 134 -155.

Subject: D
Geographical Area: 4
Country/Region: Russia and former USSR
Time Period: 8

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