Editing Marshall Plan (section)

==Development and deployment==
The reconstruction plan, developed at a meeting of the participating European states, was drafted on June 5, 1947. It offered the same aid to the [[Soviet Union]] and [[Eastern Bloc|its allies]], but they refused to accept it, under Soviet pressure (as was the case for Finland's rejection) as doing so would allow a degree of US control over the communist economies.{{sfn|Volkogonov|1996|p=531}}{{sfnm|Roberts|2000|1p=30|McMahon|2003|2p=30}}{{sfn|Seppinen|2003|p=1}} Secretary Marshall became convinced Stalin had no interest in helping restore economic health in Western Europe.{{sfn|Kaplan|1999|p=4}}

[[File:Marshall Plan.svg|thumb|upright=1.6|European Recovery Program expenditures by country. The [[Eastern Bloc]] is not included.]]
President Harry Truman signed the Marshall Plan on April 3, 1948, granting $5 billion in aid to 16 European nations. During the four years that the plan was in effect, the United States donated $17 billion (equivalent to ${{Inflation|US|21|1952|r=2}} billion in {{Inflation-year|US}}) in economic and technical assistance to help the recovery of the European countries that joined the [[Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development#Organisation for European Economic Co-operation|Organisation for European Economic Co-operation]]. The $17 billion was in the context of a US GDP of $258 billion in 1948, and on top of $17 billion in American aid to Europe between the end of the war and the start of the plan that is counted separately from the Marshall Plan.{{sfn|Milward |1984 |p=46}} The Marshall Plan was replaced by the [[Mutual Security Act|Mutual Security Plan]] at the end of 1951; that new plan gave away about $7.5 billion annually until 1961 when it was replaced by another program.{{sfn|Mills|2008|page=[https://archive.org/details/winningpeacemars00mill/page/195 195]}}

The ERP addressed each of the obstacles to postwar recovery. The plan looked to the future and did not focus on the destruction caused by the war. Much more important were efforts to modernize European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models, reducing artificial trade barriers, and instilling a sense of hope and self-reliance.{{sfnm|Hogan|1987|1pp=427–45|Eichengreen|2008|2pp=64–73}}

By 1952, as the funding ended, the economy of every participant state had surpassed pre-war levels; for all Marshall Plan recipients, output in 1951 was at least 35% higher than in 1938.{{sfn|Eichengreen |2008|p=57}}{{efn-ua|West Germany was 6% higher, the other countries 45% higher {{harv|Eichengreen |2008|p=57}}.}} Over the next two decades, Western Europe enjoyed unprecedented growth and prosperity, but economists are not sure what proportion was due directly to the ERP, what proportion indirectly, and how much would have happened without it.
A common American interpretation of the program's role in European recovery was expressed by Paul Hoffman, head of the Economic Cooperation Administration, in 1949 when he told Congress Marshall aid had provided the "critical margin" on which other investment needed for European recovery depended.{{sfn|Hogan|1987|p=189}} The Marshall Plan was one of the first elements of [[European integration]], as it erased trade barriers and set up institutions to coordinate the economy on a continental level—that is, it stimulated the total political reconstruction of Western Europe.{{sfn|Milward |1984 |p=466}}

Belgian economic historian [[Herman Van der Wee]] concludes the Marshall Plan was a "great success":

{{Blockquote|It gave a new impetus to reconstruction in Western Europe and made a decisive contribution to the renewal of the transport system, the modernization of industrial and agricultural equipment, the resumption of normal production, the raising of productivity, and the facilitating of intra-European trade.{{sfn|Van der Wee|1984|p=[https://archive.org/details/prosperityupheav00weeh/page/44 44]}}}}