Wartime Socialization of Investment: A reassessment of US capital formation in the 1940s
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
Higgs, R
刊物名称：
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
ISSN/ISSBN：
0022-0507
发表日期：
2004
页码：
500-520
关键词：
摘要：
During World War II, the U.S. government displaced private investors. According to NIPA data for the period 1942-1945, net private investment was negative $6.2 billion, and net government investment was positive $99.4 billion. Although economists have credited this government investment with various contributions to wartime and postwar economic growth, the bulk of it had little or no value beyond its immediate contribution to winning the war. This episode dramatically exposes a fundamental but false assumption that underlies official data on capital formation: that all expenditures for durable producer goods or munitions form genuine capital.