The Distorted World of Soviet-Type Economies (Routledge Revivals)

The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe provide unique examples of large-scale relatively highly developed centrally planned economies. In recent years, however, economists in both the East and West have focused with increasingly critical attention on the economies of the Soviet Bloc, in an attempt to explain why they have performed so poorly in comparison with the economies of the Western powers and the capitalist countries of South-East Asia. This book, unusual in that its author is equally familiar with both Western and Eastern sources, makes a substantial and innovative contribution to this critical literature. It highlights, in particular, a discrepancy between the behaviour of market system. It proceeds to outline how the consequent discordance between microeconomic practice and macroeconomic planning generates fundamental economic distortions, which will not be resolved by the sort of piecemeal economic reforms currently being promulgated in these countries.