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  4. September 2005
  5. Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin's Archives

Journal of Economic Literature

ISSN 0022-0515 (Print) | ISSN 2328-8175 (Online)

Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin's Archives

  • Paul Gregory
  • Mark Harrison
Journal of Economic Literature
vol. 43, no. 3, September 2005
(pp. 721–761)
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Abstract

We survey recent research on the Soviet economy in the state, party, and military archives of the Stalin era. The archives have provided rich new evidence on the economic arrangements of a command system under a powerful dictator including Stalin's role in the making of the economic system and economic policy, Stalin's accumulation objectives and the constraints that limited his power to achieve them, the limits to administrative allocation, the information flows and incentives that governed the behavior of economic managers, the scope and significance of corruption and market-oriented behavior, and the prospects for economic reform.

Citation

Gregory, Paul, and Mark Harrison. 2005. "Allocation under Dictatorship: Research in Stalin's Archives." Journal of Economic Literature, 43 (3): 721–761. DOI: 10.1257/002205105774431225

JEL Classification

  • N44 Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: Europe: 1913-
  • P21 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Planning, Coordination, and Reform
  • P26 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Political Economy; Property Rights