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economy in the late 1940's, Poland adopted Stalinist-type economic policies aimed at increasing industrial output as rapidly as possible with little regard for the development of other sectors of the economy or for the general standard of living.

In the latter half of the 1950's, Poland backed away from the Stalinist model, partly for ideological reasons and partly because of the severe economic difficulties created by forced growth. In 1956-60 the overall rate of growth of investments was reduced, and there was some cutback in the share of investments going into industry. This reduction, along with a sharp drop in the share allocated to defense and administration, allowed a rapid rise in outlays for housing and agriculture (Figure 17). Within industry there was some shift in priorities, away from heavy industry and into the material and consumer goods sectors that had been neglected in the earlier years (Figure 18). The regime, apparently satisfied that it had largely corrected the imbalances, sharply reduced the share of investment going into housing in 1961-65 and again in 1966-70; this compounded the already serious housing shortage. The share of investment going to agriculture, on the other hand, continued to increase during 1961-70 but dropped slightly in 1971.

Except during the mid-1950's, investments have risen much more rapidly than consumption. Starting from a low base in 1950, investments rose at an average annual rate of 11% in 1951-55, but dropped to a rate of 9% in 1956-60 and to 7% during 1961-71. On the other hand, funds available for personal consumption rose at an average annual rate of 5% during 1951-60 (mainly because of the 10% annual growth reportedly achieved during 1954-57), 3% during 1961-65, and 4% during 1966-70. As the result of a decline in the rate of population growth after 1965, per capita personal consumption rose at a rate of over 3.5% in 1966-70, as compared with 2% in the

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