¹ Soviet Industrial Production, 1928–1951. By Hodgman, Donald R.. Russian Research Center Study Number 15. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954. Pp. xix, 241. $5.00.Google ScholarSoviet National Income and Production in 1928. By Hoeffding, Oleg. A research study by the RAND Corporation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1954. Pp. 156. $3.75Google Scholar.

² Gerschenkron, Alexander, A Dollar Index of Soviet Machinery Output: 1927–28 to 1937 (Santa Monica: The RAND Corporation, 1951), pp. 47–58. For a test suggesting that the phenomenon is not as pervasive as Mr. Gerschenkron originally implied, especially with secular expansion of demand, seeGoogle ScholarScott, Ira O. Jr, “The Gerschenkron Hypothesis of Index Number Bias,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, November 1952, pp. 386–87Google Scholar.

³ Mr. Hodgman is computing a net value-added index, which of course excuses him from recognizing depreciation as part of value added. The United States Census of Manufactures for 1947, however, includes depreciation charges in value added by manufacture (see Vol. I, p. 20). And Abram Bergson, in discussing an ideal “adjusted factor cost standard” for national income valuation, also takes account of depreciation (sec his Soviet National Income and Product in 1937. PP- 42 and 58–59).Google Scholar

⁴ See Jasny, Naum, “Soviet Economic Growth,” Social Research, spring 1954, p. 25. Jasny suggests a crude estimate of the correction involved, but its substantiation must await painstaking and detailed extension of component series into these areas.Google Scholar

⁵ Abram Bergson's pathbreaking study of Soviet national income and product in 1937 was the first volume in this series. The second was a joint study by Mr. Bergson and Hans Hcymann, Jr., presenting accounts for 1940, 1944, and 1948 and comparing them with the 1937 accounts.

⁶ This structural shift indicates only a relative shrinkage in household consumption. That there was also an absolute fall is conclusively demonstrated by the work of Janet G. Chapman, who finds that real wages in 1937 for urban workers were about 20 per cent below 1928 (according to 1937 consumption patterns), or 40 per cent below 1928 (according to 1928 consumption patterns). See her “Real Wages in the Soviet Union, 1928-1952,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1954, p. 146. For rural households, the downward movement was surely more markedGoogle Scholar.

⁷ I cannot resist one rough computation made possible by the two studies in combination. In adjusted current prices, the net product of “industry and construction” in 1937 was estimated by Abram Bergson at 76,050 million rubles (Bergson, … 1937, p. 123), while Oleg Hoeffding finds the comparable 1928 figure to be-7,551 million rubles (Hoeffding, … 192S, p. 141), implying more than a tenfold expansion. But Mr. Hodgman's physical production index for large-scale industry, excluding construction, rises from 100 to 371. Crudely, therefore, we may divide through and see evidence of a rise in the 1937 industrial price level to 270 per cent of its 1928 level. Naum Jasny in 1952 estimated a 1937 rise to 250 per cent of 1926-27, equivalent to 260 per cent of 1928 (see his Soviet Prices of Producers' Goods, pp. 13-15). Clearly there was marked inflation, one of its effects being distortion of many official Soviet statistical comparisons.

⁸ Accounts for 1934 have already been worked out by Francis Seton (see his summary report in The Review of Economics and Statistics, August 1954, pp. 290–308).Google Scholar Their form, however, is not identical with that of the Bergson-Hoeffding-Heymann series, so that reorganization would be required to achieve comparability.

⁹ In Hoselitz, Bert F., ed., The Progress of Underdeveloped Areas (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952).Google Scholar

¹⁰ In the Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1953, pp. 311–43.Google Scholar