A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS OF ECONOMIC RELATIONS AMONG UNION REPUBLICS OF THE USSR: 1970-1988

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Abstract
This paper examines available Soviet data (and estimates from it) on the redistribution of national income among the republics through the state budget and interrepublic commodity trade relations, two contentious issues involved in the current shift to greater republic economic autonomy and authority. Although the available Soviet statistical measures are highly distorted, the study indicates considerable income transfers among the republics through the state budget. Major “donors” are the northern, more industrialized Slavic republics, whereas the principal “recipients” are less-developed republics in Central Asia. In interrepublic commodity trade, the trade balances and flows (measured in rubles) are highly distorted by established Soviet prices (particularly in accounting for foreign trade), as well as by other problems. In established domestic prices, only five republics export more to the other republics than they import from them. Soviet re-estimates of the republic trade balances to correct for the defects of subsidies, turnover taxes, and purchases by migrants, suggest that large losses of income would occur for the RSFSR, to the benefit of other republics. But in the re-estimation of the trade balances in “world market” prices, all republics except the RSFSR are left with a negative trade balance.