Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Problems of measurement of real national income: tsarist Russia
- Chapter 3 Summary results: national income of tsarist Russia, 1885–1913
- Chapter 4 An overview of the component accounts
- Chapter 5 National income, USSR territory, 1913 and 1928
- Chapter 6 Tsarist economic growth and structural change
- Chapter 7 A comparative appraisal: Russian growth before World War I
- Chapter 8 Comparisons with the Soviet period
- Chapter 9 Conclusions
- Appendix A Personal consumption expenditures in retail outlets
- Appendix B Consumer expenditures on housing rents (urban and rural areas)
- Appendix C Household service expenditures (transportation, communication, utilities, personal medical care, and domestic service)
- Appendix D Estimation of marketing and farm consumption in kind
- Appendix E Military subsistence
- Appendix F Expenditures of the imperial government
- Appendix G Expenditures of local government
- Appendix H Investment and capital stock in livestock
- Appendix I Investment in agricultural and industrial equipment
- Appendix J Net capital stock and net investment in industrial, agricultural, and residential urban structures
- Appendix K Inventory stocks and investment
- Appendix L Net capital stock and net investment in railroads, transportation and communication, and government
- Appendix M Net foreign investment
- Biblography
- Index
Chapter 9 - Conclusions
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- Chapter 1 Introduction
- Chapter 2 Problems of measurement of real national income: tsarist Russia
- Chapter 3 Summary results: national income of tsarist Russia, 1885–1913
- Chapter 4 An overview of the component accounts
- Chapter 5 National income, USSR territory, 1913 and 1928
- Chapter 6 Tsarist economic growth and structural change
- Chapter 7 A comparative appraisal: Russian growth before World War I
- Chapter 8 Comparisons with the Soviet period
- Chapter 9 Conclusions
- Appendix A Personal consumption expenditures in retail outlets
- Appendix B Consumer expenditures on housing rents (urban and rural areas)
- Appendix C Household service expenditures (transportation, communication, utilities, personal medical care, and domestic service)
- Appendix D Estimation of marketing and farm consumption in kind
- Appendix E Military subsistence
- Appendix F Expenditures of the imperial government
- Appendix G Expenditures of local government
- Appendix H Investment and capital stock in livestock
- Appendix I Investment in agricultural and industrial equipment
- Appendix J Net capital stock and net investment in industrial, agricultural, and residential urban structures
- Appendix K Inventory stocks and investment
- Appendix L Net capital stock and net investment in railroads, transportation and communication, and government
- Appendix M Net foreign investment
- Biblography
- Index
Summary
Summaries have been provided at the end of each chapter, and an understanding of the major findings of this study is best gained by rereading the chapter summaries in succession. In this final chapter I list what I consider to be the most important conclusions of this work on Russian national income.
FINDINGS
The rate of growth of the tsarist economy has been understated by past studies of Russian national income. The annual growth rate during Russia's “industrialization era” (1885 to 1913) was approximately 3.25% (net national product) and 1.7% (net national product per capita). This contrasts with Raymond Goldsmith's earlier finding of rates of approximately 2.75% (GNP) and 1.25% (per capita GNP) for the same period.
The growth rate of the tsarist economy was relatively high by the standards of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Russia belonged to the group of more rapidly growing economies such as the United States, Japan, and Sweden. On a per capita and per worker basis, Russian growth was average when compared with the experiences of the industrialized countries.
Comparison of tsarist and Soviet growth rates reveals an acceleration during the Soviet plan era, and this acceleration likely raised the volume of real output of the contemporary Soviet economy (by a factor of more than two) above that which would have prevailed under a capitalist Russia. This judgment rests upon the crucial assumption that the long-term growth rate of the tsarist economy would have been indicative of the growth of a capitalist Russia after 1917. It also omits the negative growth of the period of “transition” from capitalism to planned socialism (1917-28). If the “transition” is included in the computation of long-term Soviet growth, then the difference between the long-term tsarist and the Soviet growth rate disappears.
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- Russian National Income, 1885–1913 , pp. 192 - 197Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1983