Domar, the West and Russian economics: a historical perspective

The paper discusses Evsey Domar’s role as a link between economics in the Westand in Russia, including his influence on some Brazilian economists. The Russian heritagehe brought with him from Harbin (Manchuria) to the US consisted of an interest in socialismand Russian history. He paid close attention to the 1947 Varga controversy in the USSR.Domar’s rediscovery of Feldman’s (1928) growth model in 1957 brought it to the attention of Western and Soviet economists alike. Soviet economic development was also discussedin his interpretation of Preobrazhensky’s (1926) approach to the interaction between agriculturaland industrial sectors. Domar’s 1966 seminal article on producer cooperativescalled attention to Tugan-Baranovsky’s 1915 book on the topic. Domar’s interest in historyresulted in his 1970 hypothesis about the origins of Russian serfdom and of North andSouth American slavery. Soviet economists paid some attention to Domar’s growth models,especially those involving depreciation and the time structure of capital goods. JEL Classification: B22; B24; N00.