Appendices to chapter 4: F An input/output table

Summary

In this appendix I use input/output analysis in order to throw light on the structure of value added and gross output in the prewar Soviet economy, and especially in the industrial sector.

Input/output techniques have been little used by economic historians of the former Soviet Union. However, sufficient data exist to compile a rough input/output table for the Soviet economy immediately before World War II. The work of compilation was begun in 1952 by a group of economists assembled at the RAND Corporation of the United States Air Force for a 10-week project under the leadership of Norman M. Kaplan. The basis of their work was the captured Soviet annual economic plan for 1941, and the table which they compiled was for the Soviet economy as it was projected in the plan, not in reality. So long as Soviet planning proceeded ‘from the achieved level’, and without undue inconsistency, the 1941 plan provided a legitimate basis for deriving the underlying input/output coefficients which drove the Soviet economy in reality.

Any attempt to make practical use of the 1941-plan input/output table must begin with the character of the 1941 plan itself. The plan was an ambitious document typical of the Stalinist era. Table F.1 compares its features with the 1940 outturn along various dimensions. (However, the authors of the plan, which was dated 17 January 1941, would have had at their disposal only preliminary data for part of 1940.)