Socialist Investment Cycles

and Summary of Main Points.- 1. General Framework.- 1.1 Three schools.- 1.2 Cycles or fluctuations ?.- 1.3 Socialism.- 1.4 Statistical definition of investments.- 1.5 Theory and statistical reality.- 1.6 The relevance of cycle models.- 1.7 Formalised summary.- 2. Three Schools of Thought.- 2.1 Control theory models.- 2.1.1 The complexity argument.- 2.1.2 Election cycles in Soviet-type economies.- 2.1.3 Replacement cycles and the role of large investment projects.- 2.2 Endogenous models.- 2.2.1 The periodic nature of planning.- 2.2.2 The investment commitment model.- 2.3 Common elements.- 2.4 Exogenous models.- 2.4.1 The role of politics.- 2.4.2 Fluctuations due to planning errors.- 2.4.3 Fluctuations due to campaigns.- 2.4.4 The cliff’s edge thesis.- 2.4.5 Investment cycles or business cycles ?.- 2.4.6 GINV: target or control variable ?.- 2.4.7 The paradigm of bureaucratic regularity.- 3. Measurement of Investment Fluctuations.- 3.1 Distortion of GINV data.- 3.1.1 Revisions of past series.- 3.1.2 The treatment of military procurement.- 3.1.3 The impact of distorted price indices.- 3.2 Traps of time series analysis.- 3.2.1 Precision of growth rate figures.- 3.2.2 Theoretical and practical problems of trend analysis.- 3.2.3 Fluctuations at random ?.- 3.3 East-West comparison of GINV fluctuations.- 3.4 Synchronization of investment fluctuations.- 4. Common Patterns and Particularities - A Historical Analysis.- 4.1 The method.- 4.2 Construction output.- 4.3 Industrial output.- 4.4 Imports.- 4.5 Standard of living.- 4.6 Domestic utilization of NMP.- 4.7 Role of the harvest and foreign credits.- 5. Closing Remarks on Measurement and Control.- 5.1 The measurement trap.- 5.2 The definition trap.- 5.3 Micro-economic conditions of measurement.- Appendix I: Two Hungarian Case Studies.- 1. The impact of investment fluctuations on the labour market.- 2. Maintenance - capital repair - investment.- 3. Conclusions.- Appendix II: Basic Data.