Economic Growth and State owned industry. Economic growth models confronted to the socialist Russian economy between 1920 and 1953

Details

Supervisors

Defraigne, Jean-Christophe

Faculty

Faculté des sciences économiques, sociales, politiques et de communication

Degree label

Master [120] en sciences économiques, orientation générale

Abstract

This work aims at comparing the economic growth theory with the historic situation of the Russian economy between 1920 and 1953. This comparison starts by a presentation of four models about economic growth that can be considered as characteristic of the dominant theory. Each of those models is presented in turn and their main assumptions are highlighted. The second part of the work consists of a broad presentation of the history of the Russian State at the end of the XIXth and the beginning of the XXth centuries. This review presents the main characteristics of the Russian system in this period. The three main political models that were instituted during this period are the war communism, the New Economic Policy, and centralized planning administration. Each of those three systems relies on socialist principles, but there applications were different. The third part of the report compares the findings of the historic review with the assumptions of the theoretical part. It presents how each model represents the Russian situation; it also highlights the weaknesses of each model to serve as the only model to represent the studied period. To cope with those weaknesses, a new model is designed that includes features from the studied models and new mechanisms characteristic of the Russian economic growth.