We analyze consequences of changing the terms of trade between agriculture and industry on capital accumulation and on welfare of workers in different sectors. The issue was central to Soviet industrialization debate and it remains important in today's developing world. Through a simple general...

The paper considers issues in recent research on macroeconomic equilibrium in centrally planned economies. I defend the explicit aggregative , macroeconomic approach in theory, institutional relationships and measurement. It has offered a fresh, coherent framework for analysis of many CPE...

Since the economic calculation debate of the 1920-30s, it is known that it is impossible to create a coherent balanced plan that equates supply and demand of millions of goods and services in the national economy, not to speak about the optimal plan. It is not well understood, though, how the...

Most of the time the budget constraints in the socialist economies were harder than in developing countries and no less hard than in developed countries. The soft budget constraints (SBC) in socialist economies were not pervasive, as most authors believe, but selective, i.e. involved...

Chapter 1: Perceptions -- Chapter 2: Making Decisions: Lessons from Behavioural Economics -- Chapter 3: Establishing the Socialist Workplace: Labour, Norms and the Introduction of Piecework -- Chapter 4: Learning from the Soviet Union Means Learning to Win: Group Technology and the Mitrofanov...

"This volume examines failed attempts at modernizing the communist economy by means of optimal planning. It traces the rise and fall of the concept in Eastern Europe and China, explaining why the mission of optimization was doomed to fail and why it may nevertheless be relaunched today."

"Wer nicht mit uns geht, sondern mit den reaktionären Kräften, wird in unserer Zone rücksichtslos liquidiert und vernichtet ...", so der SED-Chef von Leipzig, Lohagen, am 9. Oktober 1947. Die Devise der Stalinisten der ersten Stunde war deutlich. In der Folge verschwanden viele erfolgreiche...

The socialism-to-market transition is over but has left its marks on the transitioning economies. An important lesson of transition is the major effect of the hardness of the budget constraint on the process, the resulting economy, and the state. One should not overlook its ethical import: a...

"Communist agriculture – from the perspective of the pig. In Communist Pigs, Thomas Fleischman traces the rise and fall of the German Democratic Republic from the perspective of one animal, Sus scrofa, or the pig. His goal is to offer a deeper understanding of the development of industrial...

The failure of economic central planning in the Soviet Union is interpreted as evidence of the impossibility of efficient central planning. But the deficiencies of the Soviet economy might have resulted from other factors, such as Soviet history, culture, leadership, and/or unique circumstances,...

Cover; Half Title; Series Page; Title; Copyright; Contents; Figures and diagrams; Tables; Boxes; Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1 Formal and informal institutions of the socialist era; 1.1 Political system and development; 1.1.1 The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia; 1.2 Legal and enforcing system;...

Administrative department as a mechanism of resource allocation -- The evaluation criteria for efficiency and fairness on resource allocation led by the administrative departments -- Applying rent seeking theory to analyze resource allocation by the administrative departments -- The efficiency...

"Examines Chinese urbanization and industrialization strategies for a model petroleum city, Daquing, during the early years of the People's Republic. It concerns the politics of building, the pursuit of food, energy and resources, and the everyday lives of the working men and women who inhabited...

Introduction -- Organisation, power and politics in the communist regime -- Romanian industrialisation : legal frame, characteristics and social consequences -- Methodology -- Plan and enterprise in communist Romania -- The human side of the communist enterprise -- Conclusions -- Appendix 1....