Harrison, Mark (2011) Secrecy, fear, and transaction costs : the business of Soviet forced labour in the early Cold War. Working Paper. Coventry: Department of Economics, University of Warwick. CAGE Online Working Paper Series, Volume 2011 (Number 47). (Unpublished)

Preview

Text (Working paper) WRAP_47.2011_harrison_revised.pdf - Published Version Download (521Kb) | Preview

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

This paper is about the costs of doing business under a harsh, secretive dictator. In 1949 the Cold War was picking up momentum. The Soviet state had entered its most secretive phase. The official rationale of secrecy was defense against external enemies. One of the Gulag’s most important secrets was the location of its labour camps, scattered across the length and depth of the Soviet Union. As this secret was guarded more and more closely, the camps began to drop out of the Soviet economic universe, losing the ability to share necessary information and do business with civilian persons and institutions without disclosing a state secret: their own location. For some months in 1949 and 1950, the Gulag’s camp chiefs and central administrators struggled with this dilemma and failed to resolve it. This episode teaches us about the costs of Soviet secrecy and raises basic questions about how secrecy was calibrated.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > DK Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Soviet Union -- Economic conditions, Soviet Union -- Economic policy , Forced labor -- Soviet Union, Dictatorship -- Soviet Union
Series Name:	CAGE Online Working Paper Series
Publisher:	Department of Economics, University of Warwick
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Official Date:	October 2011
Dates:	Date Event October 2011 ["eprint_fieldopt_dates_date_type_available" not defined]
Volume:	Volume 2011
Number:	Number 47
Number of Pages:	32
Institution:	University of Warwick
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access (Creative Commons)
Date of first compliant deposit:	1 August 2016
Date of first compliant Open Access:	1 August 2016
Version or Related Resource:	Journal article: Harrison, Mark. (2013) Secrecy, fear and transaction costs : the business of Soviet forced labour in the early Cold War. Europe-Asia Studies, Volume 65 (Number 6). pp. 1112-1135. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/58711
Related URLs:	Related item in WRAP

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads