The role of economic experiments in improving the economic management mechanism

Abstract

As an economy develops, the mechanism by which it functions demands improvement. This is one of the most crucial problems of economic policy in Eastern Europe. One way of looking for more effective methods of planning and management of the economy is by economic experiments. Economic experiments have been widely discussed in the East European 'daily press and periodicals. Yet it cannot be said that economics as a science has devoted sufficient effort to the critical analysis of the problem of experi:ments. It seems to me that this analysis is necessary, both from the practical :and the theoretical point of view. If we assume that the aim of economic experiments is to find more effective methods of planning and management ,of the economy, then the following two questions seem to be of interest: i) What has policy been hitherto in the field of economic experiments? 2) What should policy be in order to fulfil best the aims stated? The first :group of problems would include summing up what has been done hitherto in the field of experiments and pointing out the difficulties and the policy weaknesses in the field of experiments. Here we should analyse the methods used in selecting the object and the subject of experiments, i.e. what and where to experiment, the progress of experiments from the point of view of checking and evaluating their results, the generalizing of these results, and -their influence on the changes which have been made in the mechanism by