A scholar who quantified the Soviet economy's hidden flows
Even when official sales fell, samogon continued to be consumed outside the statistics.
Vladimir Treml was an American economist who used indirect indicators to estimate income and consumption missing from official Soviet statistics. He analyzed actual alcohol consumption, including samogon, and vodka's share of state budget revenue, showing why retail-sales figures understated drinking in Soviet society. His 1982 book Alcohol in the USSR: A Statistical Study brought this work together and was kept in restricted library collections in the Soviet Union.
Career Timeline
- 1960sResearched the Soviet economy and unofficial income
- 1970sEstimated the Soviet informal economy and consumption
- 1977Contributed to research on the Soviet second economy
- 1982Published Alcohol in the USSR: A Statistical Study
- 1987Published research on drinking and alcohol abuse in the USSR
- 1989With Michael Alexeev, studied the destabilizing second economy of the USSR