IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v5y1991i4p29-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The USSR before the Fall: How Poor and Why

Author

Listed:
  • Abram Bergson

Abstract

This essay appraises the scholarly findings on the level of consumption and output in the USSR, compared with that in the West. Such aggregative calculations are onerous for any country, and not very surprisingly have encountered particular difficulty where such a strange society as Soviet communism has been in question. Predictably, the results have been controversial, but properly viewed they still provide illuminating perspective on the extraordinary events that have lately transpired in the USSR.

Suggested Citation

  • Abram Bergson, 1991. "The USSR before the Fall: How Poor and Why," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(4), pages 29-44, Fall.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:5:y:1991:i:4:p:29-44
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.5.4.29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.5.4.29
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bergson, Abram, 1987. "Comparative Productivity: The USSR, Eastern Europe, and the West," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(3), pages 342-357, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Etienne Farvaque & Alexander Mihailov & Alireza Naghavi, 2018. "The Grand Experiment of Communism: Discovering the Trade-Off between Equality and Efficiency," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 174(4), pages 707-742, December.
    2. Brainerd, Elizabeth, 2010. "Reassessing the Standard of Living in the Soviet Union: An Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(1), pages 83-117, March.
    3. Nauro F. Campos & Abrizio Coricelli, 2002. "Growth in Transition: What We Know, What We Don't, and What We Should," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(3), pages 793-836, September.
    4. Kancs, d'Artis & Persyn, Damiaan, 2019. "Welfare Gains from the Variety Growth," Working Papers 2019-01, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    5. Herbert Brücker & Wolfram Schrettl, 1996. "Transformation, Investitionen und Wachstum: eine theoretische Perspektive," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 65(1), pages 5-13.
    6. repec:rdg:wpaper:em-dp2011-02 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Geoffrey Wyatt, 2003. "Corruption, Productivity and Socialism," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 223-244, May.
    8. Paul Cantor, 1996. "To Privatize or Not to Privatize: That is the Question; What is the Answer?," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 28(1), pages 96-111, March.
    9. Lee C. Adkins & Ronald L. Moomaw & Andreas Savvides, 2002. "Institutions, Freedom, and Technical Efficiency," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(1), pages 92-108, July.
    10. Broadberry, Stephen & Klein, Alexander, 2011. "When and why did eastern European economies begin to fail? Lessons from a Czechoslovak/UK productivity comparison, 1921-1991," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-52, January.
    11. Stephan, Paul III, 1996. "Toward a positive theory of privatization--lessons from soviet-type economies," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2), pages 173-193, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alberto Chilosi, 2014. "The Economic System as an End or as a Means, and the Future of Socialism: An Evolutionary Viewpoint," Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought, in: Riccardo Bellofiore & Ewa Karwowski & Jan Toporowski (ed.), Economic Crisis and Political Economy, chapter 1, pages 10-28, Palgrave Macmillan.
    2. Ark, Bart van, 2000. "Economic growth and labour productivity in Europe: half a century of East-West comparisons," Research Report 00C01, University of Groningen, Research Institute SOM (Systems, Organisations and Management).
    3. Ron Moomaw & Lee Adkins, 2007. "Regional Technical Efficiency in Europe," Economics Working Paper Series 0709, Oklahoma State University, Department of Economics and Legal Studies in Business.
    4. repec:dgr:rugggd:199941 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Ilya B. Voskoboynikov, 2023. "Sources of productivity growth in Eastern Europe and Russia before the global financial crisis," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 225-241, June.
    6. repec:dgr:rugsom:00c01 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Leonard Kukić, 2021. "The Nature Of Technological Failure: Patterns Of Biased Technical Change In Socialist Europe," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 895-925, July.
    8. Tamás Vonyó & Alexander Klein, 2019. "Why did socialist economies fail? The role of factor inputs reconsidered," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 72(1), pages 317-345, February.
    9. Kim, Byung-Yeon, 2000. "Causes of repressed inflation in the Soviet consumer market: Retail price subsidies, the sihponing effect and the budget deficit," BOFIT Discussion Papers 9/2000, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    10. Laurent Weill, 2008. "On the inefficiency of European socialist economies," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 79-89, April.
    11. Ann Hipp & Björn Jindra & Kehinde Medase, 2023. "Nothing new in the East? New evidence on productivity effects of inventions in the GDR," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2301, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.
    12. Heitger, Bernhard, 2001. "The Scope of Government and its Impact on Economic Growth in OECD Countries," Kiel Working Papers 1034, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    13. Peter Drysdale & Yiping Huang, 1997. "Technological Catch‐Up and Economic Growth in East Asia and the Pacific," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 73(222), pages 201-211, September.
    14. Herbert Brücker & Wolfram Schrettl, 1996. "Transformation, Investitionen und Wachstum: eine theoretische Perspektive," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 65(1), pages 5-13.
    15. Kim, Byung-Yeon & Kim, Suk Jin & Lee, Keun, 2007. "Assessing the economic performance of North Korea, 1954-1989: Estimates and growth accounting analysis," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 564-582, September.
    16. Bayarsaihan, T. & Coelli, T. J., 2003. "Productivity growth in pre-1990 Mongolian agriculture: spiralling disaster or emerging success?," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 28(2), pages 121-137, March.
    17. Peter Hooper & Kathryn A. Larin, 1988. "International comparisons of labor costs in manufacturing," International Finance Discussion Papers 330, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    18. Rutkowski, Michael, 1995. "Workers in transition," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1556, The World Bank.
    19. Lee C. Adkins & Ronald L. Moomaw & Andreas Savvides, 2002. "Institutions, Freedom, and Technical Efficiency," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(1), pages 92-108, July.
    20. Ark, Bart van, 1999. "Economic growth and labour productivity in Europe : half a century of east-west comparisons," GGDC Research Memorandum 199941, Groningen Growth and Development Centre, University of Groningen.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • P27 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Performance and Prospects

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:5:y:1991:i:4:p:29-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.