HARVARD UKRAINIAN STUDIES - See also - Harvard University

470 I. S. KOROPECKYJThe percentages of excess budget receipts over budget expendituresto budget receipts in the Ukraine vary, although slightly, for theperiods covered. Some of the variations may be the result of thedifferent methodologies used by the individual researchers. But it isclear that the Ukraine consistently paid substantially more to the statebudget than it received from it. On the average, the Ukraine's share oftsarist Russia's budget receipts was about 20 percent, and of payments,about 13 percent (Richyts'kyi, 1928, p. 78). In absolute terms,this surplus stayed at about 50 million rubles per annum at the end ofthe nineteenth century and at about 40 million at the beginning of thiscentury (Volobuiev, 1929, I, pp. 70-71). 4 No national income estimatesfor the Ukraine prior to the Revolution are available forcomparison. To obtain an idea of the magnitude of such a relationship,a rough approximation of the Ukrainian national income in 1900 wasundertaken. 5 According to it, the surpluses of 50 million rubles beforeand of 40 million rubles after the turn of the century represent 3.2 and2.5 percent, respectively, of the Ukraine's national income for thatyear.The evidence on the excess of budget receipts over budget expendituresin the prerevolutionary Ukraine is supported by the data on itsexternal trade. Since taxes decreased aggregate demand more thanbudget expenditures augmented it, the Ukrainian output not absorbedinternally had to be exported. As a result, the Ukraine was expected tohave positive balance of payments in its trade with the rest of theempire and with foreign countries.The sketchy trade data for the Ukraine available for a few years atthe beginning of this century show such a surplus. For example,exports exceeded imports, in trade with the rest of the Russian Empireand foreign countries, by 319 million rubles on the average in the years1909-11 (Shrah, 1924, p. 114) and by 375 million rubles in 1913(Ostapenko, 1924, pp. 206-207). The fact that the external trade4For example, one rabie in 1898 was equivalent to about $4.50 in 1979.5The Ukraine's national income in 1900 was estimated as follows. According toProkopovich (1918, p. 25), in 1900 the average national income (excluding servicesand government sectors) per capita was 67.25 rubles for the European part of theRussian Empire. In view of the Donbas industries and a relatively productiveagriculture, the national income per capita in the Ukraine can reasonably beassumed to have been about the same as the average for the entire empire.Multiplying this average times the 1897 census population of nine Ukrainianprovinces, which was 23,470 thousand (Leasure and Lewis, 1966), yields anestimate of the Ukraine's national income as 1,578 million rubles.