Economic Efficiency and the Reform Potential of the Soviet Economy

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Soviet and Western scholars have been devoting increasing attention to the question of the efficiency potential of the Soviet economic system. It has long been thought and/or known that that Soviet allocational, productive and distributive arrangements impede efficiency, but attempts to rigorously classify, analyze and measure these phenomena are of more recent origin. A good deal of valuable work has been accomplished, but much remains to be done. The purpose of this research project is to continue past joint work with collaborators at the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (TsEMI) in Moscow. It represents the second year (Phase II) of a five-year research agenda, to which the Soviet research team also is committed. The current Phase involves four main directions of analysis: (1) to complete a monograph entitled Theory and Measurement of Economic Efficiency in the Soviet Union and the United States; (2) to assimilate the disparate strands of the efficiency literature into a status report on the analysis and measurement of Soviet economic efficiency; (3) to assess the efficiency potential of the Soviet economic system by extending existing theoretical and empirical analyses; and (4) to evaluate the implications of Gorbachev's unfolding reforms from the standpoint of the efficiency potential of the system. The methodology being developed and applied in this project has broad applicability in economics. The collaborative effort, unique for its scale in this area, should provide a better formal picture of the emerging Soviet economic arrangements, at the same time that it acquaints some influential Soviet economists with state-of-the-art Western analysis.