Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/234953 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
CHOPE Working Paper No. 2021-13
Publisher: 
Duke University, Center for the History of Political Economy (CHOPE), Durham, NC
Abstract: 
Simon Kuznets was born and educated in Russia and the Soviet Ukraine. He completed his economic education and adopted his research methodology in the United States where Wesley Mitchell was a major influence during his early career. Though scarred by the trauma of displacement, eviction, and discrimination before emigration he regarded the early Soviet regime with an unbiased and mildly sympathetic scholar's eye. This changed drastically by 1930, apparently as a result of the Stalinist dictatorial regime and the hounding of kindred spirit economists. He fell silent on all things Russian for three decades. The debates on Soviet industrialization in the early 1920s influenced his major study on the economic growth of nations, and when the study was well underway he reengaged with Soviet economics with a devastating appraisal of its performance. Some of his work was influenced by his heritage, particularly his Jewish roots. Overall, his relation with Russia and the Soviet Union was truly an uneasy one.
Subjects: 
Simon Kuznets
Modern Economic Growth
Soviet industrialization
Jewish heritage
JEL: 
B1
B2
B31
E01
O57
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
549.09 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.