Despite all the difficulties with Soviet statistics, the gross domestic product of the Baltic states, starting from 1920, has finally been calculated. The scientific leader of the project, Gatis Krūmiņš, reveals surprising conclusions about both Ulmanis and Soviet times
Since the 90s, we have asked ourselves the question – why do we lag behind Estonians in economic development? In recent years, the question has had to be supplemented – why are we also lagging behind the Lithuanians? There are different versions of the answers, but until now there has been a lack of reliable information about the economic development of the Baltic countries over a longer period of time, which would allow the events of recent years to be put into a wider context. It has also not been possible to reliably compare the experience of the Baltics with the rest of Europe, as the statistics of both the interwar years, and especially of the Soviet era and the first years of restored independence, must be thoroughly processed in order to obtain data comparable to today’s.
Now that job is done. Under the guidance of historian Gats Krūmins, a team of researchers from Vidzeme University, Norwegian School of Economics, Vilnius University and Tartu University have calculated the gross domestic product of the Baltic states in comparable prices, starting from 1920. The project was large-scale – one million euros were raised from grants from the European Economic Area, and as a result, the voluminous array of data created will be available to all interested parties in an interactive database.
Before the official publication of the results of the study on April 11, Ir went to see Gat Krūmiņas to learn more about the study and its main conclusions.
In politics and the media, the comparison of gross domestic product is mostly perceived as a competition – which one is bigger? Was that the motivation for this project?
Of course, it is important, but for us as scientists, the main problem seemed to be that it has been done everywhere in Europe, is the overall picture of the last hundred years, but we were like a white spot. Probably only Slovakia has not done it yet. Of course, this is not the case anywhere in the former USSR, but Norway has such data for the last two hundred years. I would say it is part of a nation’s self-esteem. Economic history publications compare countries. If there is no information about you, stay out. For some 20-30 years, various groups or individuals have tried to develop it, but it is very difficult. In our case, also because there is a period of occupation with a completely different economic model. There were huge doubts whether it could be done at all. Something appeared here and there in some databases internationally, there is a Maddison project at the University of Groningen, their ambition is to calculate the GDP of the whole world by country since the birth of Christ. It seemed to us that the data about the Baltics were quite mixed. Personally, it was still important for me to understand the period of occupation of the USSR, the damages caused and the gross domestic product not obtained, thus the delayed development. But you can’t talk about the delay if you haven’t calculated what the real GDP was.
2024-04-10 23:19:26
#recover #quickly #IR.lv
