Wartime Socialization of Investment: A Reassessment of U.S. Capital Formation in the 1940s
重新评估二战期间美国政府投资对资本形成的影响，指出官方数据高估了战时资本形成，因为大部分军需品支出并非真正的资本，而是消耗性消费。
During World War II, the U.S. government displaced private investors. According to NIPA data for the period 1942–1945, net private investment was negative 99.4 billion. Although economists have credited this government investment with various contributions to wartime and postwar economic growth, the bulk of it had little or no value beyond its immediate contribution to winning the war. This episode dramatically exposes a fundamental but false assumption that underlies official data on capital formation: that all expenditures for durable producer goods or munitions form genuine capital. There are circumstances which make the consumption of capital unavoidable. A costly war cannot be financed without such a damaging measure …. There may arise situations in which it may be unavoidable to burn down the house to keep from freezing, but those who do that should realize what it costs and what they will have to do without later on.Ludwig von MisesMises, Interventionism, p. 52.