Harrison, Mark, 1949- (2001) The Soviet market for inventions: the case of jet propulsion, 1932 to 1944. Working Paper. University of Warwick, Department of Economics, Coventry.

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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.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	T Technology > TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Jet engines -- Soviet Union, Research and development projects -- Soviet Union, Research, Industrial -- Costs, Soviet Union -- Economic conditions
Series Name:	Warwick economic research papers
Publisher:	University of Warwick, Department of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Date:	18 June 2001
Number:	No.605
Number of Pages:	54
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Description:	This draft 18 June, 2001
Funder:	Leverhulme Trust (LT), British Academy (BA), University of Warwick
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/1578

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