@article{ref1,
title="In the shadow of the Gulag: worker discipline under Stalin",
journal="Journal of comparative economics",
year="2015",
author="Miller, Marcus and Smith, Jennifer C.",
volume="43",
number="3",
pages="531-548",
abstract="An 'efficiency wage' model developed for Western economies is reinterpreted in the context of Stalin's Russia, with imprisonment - not unemployment - acting as a 'worker discipline device'. The threat of imprisonment allows the state to pay a lower wage outside the Gulag than otherwise, thereby raising the &quot;surplus&quot; left over for investment: this externality provides a reason for coercion over and above the direct productivity of those in custody.   Just how credible the threat of imprisonment was under Stalin is documented using archival data now available; but the enormous scale of random imprisonment involved is, we argue, attributable not to economic factors but to Stalin's insecurity in the absence of a legitimate process for succession.   We develop a model of demand and supply for industrial labour in such a command economy. To get more resources for investment or war, the state depresses the level of real wages; to avoid incentive problems in the wider economy, the harshness of prison conditions can be intensified. This is the logic of coercion we analyse.   Highlights  •  The Gulag had incentive effects on Soviet labour akin to unemployment in the West.  •  Stalin's use of imprisonment for terror and so-called shirking is documented.  •  An efficiency wage model shows how the threat of prison raises investible surplus.  •  It helps explain use of monitors, promises of a better future and harsh punishment.  •  But random incarceration, used for political purposes, raises the efficiency wage.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0147-5967",
doi="10.1016/j.jce.2015.01.005",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jce.2015.01.005"
}