{"title":"“Marco Polo Economics” and Narrative in the NBER Soviet Growth Study","authors":"Daniel Kuehn","doi":"10.1215/00182702-10438897","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In his 1962 NBER volume, The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union, Warren Nutter writes about how the study of the Soviet economy was hamstrung by official secrecy and data limitations. Western economists were forced to rely on what Nutter called “Marco Polo economics” or “travelers' tales” to replace or interpret quantitative data. Nutter's book is littered with these tales of Soviet economic activity from Soviet émigrés, foreign visitors, and reports of Soviet citizens. The tales provide a narrative grounding for The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union by outlining the flow of data through the Soviet statistical bureaucracy, establishing the strengths and limitations of Soviet data, and aiding in the interpretation of difficult-to-measure concepts such as product quality and military production.","PeriodicalId":1,"journal":{"name":"Accounts of Chemical Research","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":16.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Accounts of Chemical Research","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00182702-10438897","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"化学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract In his 1962 NBER volume, The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union, Warren Nutter writes about how the study of the Soviet economy was hamstrung by official secrecy and data limitations. Western economists were forced to rely on what Nutter called “Marco Polo economics” or “travelers' tales” to replace or interpret quantitative data. Nutter's book is littered with these tales of Soviet economic activity from Soviet émigrés, foreign visitors, and reports of Soviet citizens. The tales provide a narrative grounding for The Growth of Industrial Production in the Soviet Union by outlining the flow of data through the Soviet statistical bureaucracy, establishing the strengths and limitations of Soviet data, and aiding in the interpretation of difficult-to-measure concepts such as product quality and military production.
沃伦·纳特(Warren Nutter)在其1962年出版的《苏联工业生产的增长》(The Growth of Industrial Production In Soviet Union)一书中写道，对苏联经济的研究如何受到官方保密和数据限制的阻碍。西方经济学家被迫依靠纳特所说的“马可波罗经济学”或“旅行者的故事”来取代或解释定量数据。纳特的书中充斥着这些关于苏联经济活动的故事，这些故事来自苏联的移民和外国游客和苏联公民的报告。这些故事为《苏联工业生产的增长》提供了叙事基础，概述了苏联统计官僚机构的数据流，确立了苏联数据的优势和局限性，并帮助解释了产品质量和军事生产等难以衡量的概念。
期刊介绍：
Accounts of Chemical Research presents short, concise and critical articles offering easy-to-read overviews of basic research and applications in all areas of chemistry and biochemistry. These short reviews focus on research from the author’s own laboratory and are designed to teach the reader about a research project. In addition, Accounts of Chemical Research publishes commentaries that give an informed opinion on a current research problem. Special Issues online are devoted to a single topic of unusual activity and significance.
Accounts of Chemical Research replaces the traditional article abstract with an article "Conspectus." These entries synopsize the research affording the reader a closer look at the content and significance of an article. Through this provision of a more detailed description of the article contents, the Conspectus enhances the article's discoverability by search engines and the exposure for the research.
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