Introduction: a special issue in honoring Janos Kornai

Abstract

Janos Kornai is one of the leading economists of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, his interdisciplinary, systemic approach and the Austro-Hungarian convergence on the socialist calculation debate are not explored sufficiently by public choice scholars or by political scientists and economists more generally. The essays published herein try to fill the gaps. In doing so, we start by asking: what is the specific contribution of the eminent economist Janos Kornai to our discipline? The contributions demonstrate that no unique answer to that question is possible. However, despite the diversity of responses, they all converge on one point: Kornai contributes to our understanding of the consequences of an allegedly ‘omnipresent’ state.