I'll have to look at the actual references in the piece, but I'd guess it's quite hard to disaggregate food subsidy given they were folded into so many institutional settings and ministerial operations with direct relationships to producers. What I'm saying is that looking at direct subsidies to consumers buying from food stores might be less relevant than the author realises given that a significant part of consumption beyond staples takes place via credentialized access to workplace, etc.
The paper calculates direct subsidies to producers and even talks about siphoning (as in a title) in which enterprises were buying stuff directed to a consumer market on their business funds.
But it's a general problem with everything Soviet, I tried to allocate social spending, and I have no idea how to allocate housing for example, because it was also funded by enterprise funds but it was also a "social program" sometimes.
I'll have to look at the actual references in the piece, but I'd guess it's quite hard to disaggregate food subsidy given they were folded into so many institutional settings and ministerial operations with direct relationships to producers. What I'm saying is that looking at direct subsidies to consumers buying from food stores might be less relevant than the author realises given that a significant part of consumption beyond staples takes place via credentialized access to workplace, etc.
The paper calculates direct subsidies to producers and even talks about siphoning (as in a title) in which enterprises were buying stuff directed to a consumer market on their business funds.
But it's a general problem with everything Soviet, I tried to allocate social spending, and I have no idea how to allocate housing for example, because it was also funded by enterprise funds but it was also a "social program" sometimes.