The Soviet Market for Inventions: The Case of Jet Propulsion, 1932 to 1944

Mark Harrison ()

No 269375, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: The paper outlines the problem of aviation jet propulsion in the interwar period and World War II and analyses Soviet progress towards a solution using newly available archival documentation. Soviet R&D commitments were influenced by long–term security motivations and the need to invest in local tacit knowledge. The scale and diversity of the Soviet R&D effort is described. The allocation of resources resulted from R&D agents’ horizontally organised market–like interactions within a vertically organised command system. Financing decisions were made in a context of asymmetric information, adverse selection, and opportunism. Overall funding was rationed; budget constraints on individual projects were soft, but were periodically hardened. In addition to decisions to finance and refinance or terminate projects, takeovers and mergers took place in a secondary asset market. There is evidence of rent–seeking activity, but where rent–seeking was detected it was punished.

Keywords: International Development; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 54
Date: 2001-06-18
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Working Paper: The soviet market for inventions: the case of jet propulsion, 1932 to 1944 (2001)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:269375

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.269375

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