Fri Feb 11 12:56:26 EST 2005
Dear Jeff (sorry to keep on chewing on this topic),
a couple of thoughts. First, Kekkonen was not a president when the
reparations were made and current scholarship does not put much weight into
them having a (beneficial) effect on the Finnish economy. Second, Cold War
trade etc - well, there again I might disagree a bit. While the Finns
certainly benefited, up to a degree, from the trade with the Soviet Union (I
just co-authored a paper on this), it is very likely that the Soviets took
advantage of the "average" Finnish consumer in this respect. While oil
imports were beneficial to the economy, the imports of various substandard
knicknacks was not. I think the jury is still out on the aggregate economic
impact.
Best,
Jari
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jari Eloranta, Ph.D
Assistant Professor of Comparative Economic and Business History,
Appalachian State University, Department of History, Whitener Hall, Boone,
NC 28608, USA
Phone: +1-828-262 6006, email: elorantaj at appstate.edu
http://www.appstate.edu/~elorantaj/