Depreciation Charges and Estimation of the Effectiveness of New Technology in a System of Optimal Planning

The study of models of optimal planning is extremely important, not only for its own sake but also because it enables us to determine an efficient approach to quantitative and, to a certain extent, to qualitative study of both general and specialized problems of the socialist economy, the very nature of which corresponds to optimal planning. In our theoretical and experimental research on planning optimization in Novosibirsk, we have also paid a great deal of attention to such central problems as price formation, to which the extremely interesting papers of V. S. Nemchinov and V. V. Novozhilov have been devoted at this meeting. We also adhere to rational principles in price formation and hold a similar but more monistic position, relating prices to the optimal plan. We believe their direct, rather than component-wise, calculation to be more feasible and rational. Our viewpoint on these matters is given, for example, in [1-4]. Obviously, however, all these proposals do not yet bear a definitive character, which they will get through further research, discussion, and experience in practical use.