Description
Book SynopsisThe papers brought together in this volume represent a decade of advances in the historical political economy of defence, dictatorship, and warfare. They address defining events and institutions of the world in the twentieth century: economic consequences of repression and violence, the outcomes of two world wars, and the rise and fall of communism. They cross traditional disciplinary boundaries, combining a broad sweep with close attention to measurement and narrative detail; offering insights into these issues from economics, history, political science, and statistics; and demonstrating in action the value of a multi-disciplinary approach.The author was one of the first economists to leverage the opening of former Soviet archives. He has led international projects that reinvented the quantitative economics of the two world wars and contributed significantly to historical Soviet studies. In 2012, he shared with Andrei Markevich the Russian National Prize for Applied Economics, which was awarded in recognition of their research.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Economics of Conflict and Coercion; War and Disintegration, 1914 - 1945; Why the Wealthy Won: Mobilisation and Economic Development in Two World Wars; Why Didn't the Soviet Economy Collapse in 1942?; The Frequency of Wars; Soviet Industry and the Red Army Under Stalin: A Military-Industrial Complex?; Contracting for Quality under a Dictator: The Soviet Defense Market, 1930 - 1950; A Soviet Quasi-Market for Inventions: Jet Propulsion, 1932 - 1946; The Political Economy of a Soviet Military R&D Failure: Steam Power for Aviation, 1932 - 1939; The Fundamental Problem of Command: Plan and Compliance in a Partially Centralised Economy; Accumulation and Labor Coercion Under Late Stalinism; Economic Information in the Life and Death of the Soviet Command System; Coercion, Compliance, and the Collapse of the Soviet Command Economy.
