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Why did socialist economies fail? The role of factor inputs reconsidered

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  • Tamás Vonyó
  • Alexander Klein

Abstract

We present new investment data and revised growth accounts for three socialist economies between 1950 and 1989. Government statistics reported distorted measures for both the rate and trajectory of productivity growth in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Researchers have benefited from revised output data, but continued to use official statistics on capital input, or estimated capital stock from official investment data. Investment levels and rates of capital accumulations were, in fact, much lower than officially claimed and over-reporting worsened over time. Sluggish factor accumulation, declining equipment investment and labor input, contributed much more to the socialist growth failure of the 1980s than previously thought.

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  • Tamás Vonyó & Alexander Klein, 2017. "Why did socialist economies fail? The role of factor inputs reconsidered," Studies in Economics 1708, School of Economics, University of Kent.
    • Handle: RePEc:ukc:ukcedp:1708
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    2. Nicholas Crafts & Pieter Woltjer, 2021. "Growth Accounting In Economic History: Findings, Lessons And New Directions," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 670-696, July.
    3. Leonard Kukić, 2024. "Technical change and the postwar slowdown in Soviet economic growth in a long run perspective, 1885–2019," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(2), pages 644-674, May.
    4. Ilya B. Voskoboynikov, 2021. "Accounting for growth in the USSR and Russia, 1950–2012," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 870-894, July.
    5. Kukic, Leonard, 2021. "Technical change and the postwar slowdown in Soviet economic growth," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 33259, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    6. Leonard Kukić, 2018. "Socialist growth revisited: insights from Yugoslavia," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 22(4), pages 403-429.
    7. Gilbert Cette & Aurélien Devillard & Vincenzo Spiezia, 2022. "Growth Factors in Developed Countries: A 1960–2019 Growth Accounting Decomposition," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 64(2), pages 159-185, June.
    8. Leonard Kukić, 2020. "Origins of regional divergence: economic growth in socialist Yugoslavia," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1097-1127, November.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Péter Benczúr & István Kónya, 2022. "Convergence to the Centre," Contributions to Economics, in: László Mátyás (ed.), Emerging European Economies after the Pandemic, chapter 0, pages 1-51, Springer.
    12. Leandro Prados de la Escosura & Tamás Vonyó & Ilya B. Voskoboynikov, 2021. "Accounting For Growth In History," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 655-669, July.
    13. Ann Hipp & Udo Ludwig & Jutta Günther, 2021. "Unable to innovate or just bad circumstances? Comparing the innovation system of a state-led and market-based economy," Bremen Papers on Economics & Innovation 2111, University of Bremen, Faculty of Business Studies and Economics.
    14. Art Carden, 2023. "Economic planning must be polycentric, not monocentric: Introduction to a symposium on Mises and Hayek on socialism and knowledge," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 647-656, January.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    growth accounting; capital accumulation; Socialism; Eastern Europe;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N14 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N64 - Economic History - - Manufacturing and Construction - - - Europe: 1913-
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence
    • P27 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Performance and Prospects

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