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MOSCOW-UKRAINE ECONOMIC RELATIONS 479than that of agriculture in the RSFSR during the 1960s and early1970s. In comparison with Kazakhstan, the Ukraine was ahead in theresource productivity growth of industry throughout most of thepostwar period, except for the early 1970s. In view of the sharpfluctuations in productivity growth in Kazakhstan's agriculture, nomeaningful comparison of this sector in the two countries can bemade. It is true that in contrast to productivity growth, the staticproductivity of resources in various extractive industries, resultingfrom favorable mineralogical conditions, might often have beenhigher in the Asiatic regions of the RSFSR and in other easternrepublics than in the Ukraine. But the harsh climate of these regions,with its high requirements for infrastructure investment and longdistances to population centers in the west of the country, willcontinue to outweigh, in terms of cost per unit of output to consumers,their advantageous natural conditions during the foreseeablefuture.Because resource productivity grows in different economic sectorsand industrial branches at different rates, structural changes caninfluence the overall productivity of a national or regional economy.In the above comparisons, analysis of such changes cannot be includedbecause of lack of data. But it is doubtful that the inclusion ofsuch an analysis would invalidate the results in Table 4. The economiesof the Ukraine and the RSFSR, and to a lesser extent ofKazakhstan, are large enough and sufficiently diversified so that, inthe context of Soviet planning, structural changes usually do not takeplace in one of these republics without taking place in another.On the basis of Table 4, one can certainly question the validity ofthe efficiency argument for the transfer of Ukrainian funds to otherSoviet regions for investment throughout the period under discussion.The recent deterioration of the Ukraine with respect to productivitygrowth, especially in industry, relative to the RSFSR is probably due,in large part, precisely to the investment policy of the Moscowplanners. Because Moscow consistently allocated relatively less investmentto the Ukraine than to the RSFSR and Kazakhstan, theUkrainian economy was less able to introduce advanced technologyand had less opportunity to adjust its economic structure to newtechnological requirements. 1515For further discussion of this problem, see Gordijew and Koropeckyj (1981,pp. 288-91).