A01=Robert C. Allen
Agriculture
Author_Robert C. Allen
Average Price
Budget constraint
Calculation
Capital accumulation
Capital good
Capitalism
Category=KCZ
Category=NHD
Category=NHTK
Central Asia
Commodity
Consumer
Consumer Goods
Consumption (economics)
Cultivator
Developed country
Economic development
Economic growth
Economist
Economy
Economy of Russia
Economy of the Soviet Union
Employment
eq_bestseller
eq_business-finance-law
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
European Russia
Expense
Farm income
Farmers' market
Fertility
First five-year plan (Soviet Union)
Gosplan
Heavy industry
Hectare
Household
Income
Income in kind
Industrial Revolution
Industrialisation
Industry
Inflation
Investment
Investment goods
Livestock
Market price
Marketing
Measures of national income and output
North America
Output (economics)
Peasant
Population growth
Price index
Primary sector of the economy
Procurement
Production function
Productivity
Retail
Retail price index
Scissors Crisis
Stalinism
Standard of living
Statistic
Stock
Supply (economics)
Tariff
Tax
Total fertility rate
Turnover tax
Unemployment
Urbanization
Wage
Wholesaling
World War II
Year
Product details
- ISBN 9780691144313
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 26 Jul 2009
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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To say that history's greatest economic experiment--Soviet communism--was also its greatest economic failure is to say what many consider obvious. Here, in a startling reinterpretation, Robert Allen argues that the USSR was one of the most successful developing economies of the twentieth century. He reaches this provocative conclusion by recalculating national consumption and using economic, demographic, and computer simulation models to address the "what if" questions central to Soviet history. Moreover, by comparing Soviet performance not only with advanced but with less developed countries, he provides a meaningful context for its evaluation. Although the Russian economy began to develop in the late nineteenth century based on wheat exports, modern economic growth proved elusive. But growth was rapid from 1928 to the 1970s--due to successful Five Year Plans. Notwithstanding the horrors of Stalinism, the building of heavy industry accelerated growth during the 1930s and raised living standards, especially for the many peasants who moved to cities. A sudden drop in fertility due to the education of women and their employment outside the home also facilitated growth.
While highlighting the previously underemphasized achievements of Soviet planning, Farm to Factory also shows, through methodical analysis set in fluid prose, that Stalin's worst excesses--such as the bloody collectivization of agriculture--did little to spur growth. Economic development stagnated after 1970, as vital resources were diverted to the military and as a Soviet leadership lacking in original thought pursued wasteful investments.
Robert C. Allen is Professor of Economic History at Oxford University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He is the author of "Enclosure and the Yeoman".
