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Economic welfare and the economics of Soviet socialism: Essays in honor of Abram Bergson
JOURNALOFCOMPARATIVEECONOMlCS8, 107-108 (1984)
Ed., Economic We&we and the Economics of Soviet Socialism: Essays in Honor ofAbram Bergson. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981. xiii + 340 pp., index. $39.50.
STEVEN ROSEFIELDE,
This volume is a collection of essaysby students and colleaguesof Abram Bergson honoring his contributions to the fields of Soviet economic studies and welfare economics. The book is divided into two sections-one, largely empirical, on Soviet socialism and a second, largely theoretical, on modern welfare economics. The introductory essay in each section addressesthe impact of Bergson’sown work. In “Knowledge and Socialism,” Steven Rosefielde details Bergson’scontributions to the methodology of social valuation. Bergson’s“adjusted ruble factor cost standard” still provides a methodology for estimating an economy’s production potential at imputed opportunitycost prices. His elaboration of the index-number problem demonstrated that objective measurementswere possible even though the concept of economic growth itself is not single-valued. Paul Samuelson’s “Bergsonian Welfare Economics” places Bergson’swork in the context of modern welfare theory, providing both an introduction and an overview to some of the major issues considered in the decadesbetween Ramsey and Rawls. The section on Soviet economic reality contains some outstanding pieces. “Economic Growth in Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union” by Paul Gregory presents a far more favorable assessmentof economic performance in the late Czarist era than is found in most earlier studies, including Gregory’s own. J. M . Montias and Susan Rose-Ackerman discussthe characteristics of Soviet-type systems that generate incentives to corruption and construct a simple model of the expected benefits of bribery. Joseph Berliner’s description of the evolution of Soviet pricing policy and the impact of that policy on technical innovation should be required reading for anyone occupied in the craft of modeling Soviet planning processes,for our current models capture few of the features of the cost-pass-throughand measured-quality-pass-throughrules of the game that Berliner details. In other papers in this section, David Granick explores the implications of a job-right constraint and Frank Holzman treats balance-of-payment adjustment. Of the empirical papers, Gur Ofer and Aaron Vinokur’s study of earnings differentials by sex in the Soviet Union and Steven Rosefielde’s“Comparative Advantage and the Evolving Pattern of Soviet International Commodity 107
0147-5967184 $3.00 Copyright Q 1984 by Academic Pres, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
108
BOOK REVIEWS
Specialization” are particularly interesting. The first paper concludes that the pattern of earnings differentials in the Soviet Union is similar to the Western pattern and that about half of the differential between male and female wages can be accounted for by determinants such as “occupation” and “hours worked” that are also important Western determinants. The Rosefielde paper calculates Soviet terms of trade and domestic opportunity costs to test whether Soviet patterns of trade conform to comparative advantage. In the main, they do. The section on welfare economics contains a paper by Arrow on Paretooptimal income redistribution; a static optimizing model by Jan Tinbergen that derives an optimal structure of education and occupation from assumed parameters of a production function and assumed costs of education; and a simple model of one-quality choice by Martin Spechler. Simon Kuznets provides a discussion of the empirical relationship between growth and structure in modem economies. Both in its breadth and in the quality of the essays,this volume is, in fact, a fitting tribute to Bergson’s own work. JUDYTHORNTON University of Washington Seattle, Washington
Ed., Economic We&we and the Economics of Soviet Socialism: Essays in Honor ofAbram Bergson. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981. xiii + 340 pp., index. $39.50.
STEVEN ROSEFIELDE,
This volume is a collection of essaysby students and colleaguesof Abram Bergson honoring his contributions to the fields of Soviet economic studies and welfare economics. The book is divided into two sections-one, largely empirical, on Soviet socialism and a second, largely theoretical, on modern welfare economics. The introductory essay in each section addressesthe impact of Bergson’sown work. In “Knowledge and Socialism,” Steven Rosefielde details Bergson’scontributions to the methodology of social valuation. Bergson’s“adjusted ruble factor cost standard” still provides a methodology for estimating an economy’s production potential at imputed opportunitycost prices. His elaboration of the index-number problem demonstrated that objective measurementswere possible even though the concept of economic growth itself is not single-valued. Paul Samuelson’s “Bergsonian Welfare Economics” places Bergson’swork in the context of modern welfare theory, providing both an introduction and an overview to some of the major issues considered in the decadesbetween Ramsey and Rawls. The section on Soviet economic reality contains some outstanding pieces. “Economic Growth in Czarist Russia and the Soviet Union” by Paul Gregory presents a far more favorable assessmentof economic performance in the late Czarist era than is found in most earlier studies, including Gregory’s own. J. M . Montias and Susan Rose-Ackerman discussthe characteristics of Soviet-type systems that generate incentives to corruption and construct a simple model of the expected benefits of bribery. Joseph Berliner’s description of the evolution of Soviet pricing policy and the impact of that policy on technical innovation should be required reading for anyone occupied in the craft of modeling Soviet planning processes,for our current models capture few of the features of the cost-pass-throughand measured-quality-pass-throughrules of the game that Berliner details. In other papers in this section, David Granick explores the implications of a job-right constraint and Frank Holzman treats balance-of-payment adjustment. Of the empirical papers, Gur Ofer and Aaron Vinokur’s study of earnings differentials by sex in the Soviet Union and Steven Rosefielde’s“Comparative Advantage and the Evolving Pattern of Soviet International Commodity 107
0147-5967184 $3.00 Copyright Q 1984 by Academic Pres, Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
108
BOOK REVIEWS
Specialization” are particularly interesting. The first paper concludes that the pattern of earnings differentials in the Soviet Union is similar to the Western pattern and that about half of the differential between male and female wages can be accounted for by determinants such as “occupation” and “hours worked” that are also important Western determinants. The Rosefielde paper calculates Soviet terms of trade and domestic opportunity costs to test whether Soviet patterns of trade conform to comparative advantage. In the main, they do. The section on welfare economics contains a paper by Arrow on Paretooptimal income redistribution; a static optimizing model by Jan Tinbergen that derives an optimal structure of education and occupation from assumed parameters of a production function and assumed costs of education; and a simple model of one-quality choice by Martin Spechler. Simon Kuznets provides a discussion of the empirical relationship between growth and structure in modem economies. Both in its breadth and in the quality of the essays,this volume is, in fact, a fitting tribute to Bergson’s own work. JUDYTHORNTON University of Washington Seattle, Washington