Central Economic Planning Research Articles

An agent-based approach to the limits of economic planning

AbstractMises’ and Hayek’s arguments against central economic planning have long been taken as definitive proof that a centrally planned economy managed by the government would be impossible. Today, however, the exponential rise in the capacities of AI has opened up the possibility that supercomputers could have what it takes to plan the national economy. The ‘economic calculation debate’ has thus reignited. Arguably, this is because neither Mises nor Hayek have given a clear and conclusive argument why central planning of the economy is impossible in principle. The paper frames the problem of economic planning as an agent–environment interaction, offering a taxonomy of the different sets of agents at play a) in a market economy and b) in a centrally planned economy equipped with the most sophisticated AI technology. The argument is that public institutions as planning bodies cannot replace the market order, no matter the AI technology behind them, for the elimination of the market entails the elimination of crucial kinds of agents that cannot be recreated or emulated through AI or careful social planning: the proactive action of entrepreneurs driving market allocation.

Artificial intelligence and modern planned economies: a discussion on methods and institutions

AbstractInterest in computerised central economic planning (CCEP) has seen a resurgence, as there is strong demand for an alternative vision to modern free (or not so free) market liberal capitalism. Given the close links of CCEP with what we would now broadly call artificial intelligence (AI)—e.g. optimisation, game theory, function approximation, machine learning, automated reasoning—it is reasonable to draw direct analogues and perform an analysis that would help identify what commodities and institutions we should see for a CCEP programme to become successful. Following this analysis, we conclude that a CCEP economy would need to have a very different outlook from current market practices, with a focus on producing basic “interlinking” commodities (e.g. tools, processed materials, instruction videos) that consumers can use as a form of collective R &D. On an institutional level, CCEP should strive for the release of basic commodities that empower consumers by having as many alternative uses as possible, but also making sure that a baseline of basic necessities is widely available.

Day-VII Architecture: A Catalogue of Polish Churches post 1945

Day-VII Architecture: A Catalogue of Polish Churches post 1945

Assumed military solutions to central economic planning problems: evidence from soviet military journals

Assumed military solutions to central economic planning problems: evidence from soviet military journals

Development of Microfinance Organisations in Vietnam

The aim of this paper is to examine the development of microfinance in Vietnam from the early 1980s. This provides a particularly interesting case study in view of the large-scale changes that have taken place in the economy over the period, which has experienced the transition from a Central Economic Planning System towards a ‘socialist-oriented market economy’, with increased integration in the world economy. Starting from a framework, or taxonomy, of microfinance organisations, the paper explores how the two main objectives of microfinance organisations - of meeting the economic needs of borrowers and being sustainable - have eventually been met using a diversity of organisational forms.

Achieving moral, high quality, affordable medical care in America through a true free market.

The basis of a just and moral economic model for health care is examined in the context of Catholic social teaching. The performance of the current model of "central economic planning" in medicine is evaluated in terms of the core principles of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and compared to freedom-based economic models. It is clear that the best way to respect and serve human dignity, the common good, subsidiarity, and solidarity in medicine is through the establishment of a true, free-market health economy. Lay Summary : This article reviews the impact of recent healthcare reforms as well as traditional "third party payment" models for healthcare financing in America (insurance). Impact on patients and doctors are evaluated in the context of Catholic social doctrine and the Catechism. The many shortcomings and negative consequences of an economy planned centrally by government are compared to the benefits of a true free-market medical economy with empowered individuals. The analysis shows that interference in the patient-physician relationship and the centrally planned medical economy itself violates Catholic teachings, harms patients and doctors, and create morally evil outcomes and economic structures.

Central Economic Planning and India's Economic Performance: 1951-1965

The GDP growth rates recorded during the first 15 years of Indian planning are far higher than those recorded during the colonial era. The prevalent view amongst economists, therefore, is that the introduction of central economic planning caused a significant improvement in India’s economic performance. This paper critiques this view. It argues that despite rather impressive GDP growth rates, the living standards of the masses stagnated during this period and thus the masses were not better off than they were under the colonial government. It also points out that, given the inherent economic irrationality of central planning, this period witnessed a massive misallocation of resources.

Tourism as Catalyst for Quality of Life in Transitioning Subsistence Marketplaces

Tourism is a potential catalyst for transforming subsistence marketplaces, and the quality of life (QOL) for people who live in them. The authors share findings from a study on tourism development in Ha Long, Vietnam, a community transitioning from central economic planning and a focus on heavy and extractive industries, to one that is increasingly dominated by tourism and the industries, goods and services that support it. The authors used multiple methods to gain insights into QOL in Ha Long; those methods included site observations, depth interviews and data collection via an instrument designed and developed by the authors that quantifies perceptions of the evolution of residents’ well-being, including anticipated QOL. Findings indicate that a large majority of citizen-stakeholders in Ha Long generally feel life-quality has improved because of policy changes and subsequent tourism development. Concern is growing, however, that some environmental and societal degradation has accompanied positive economic outcomes. Marketing and policy implications, and opportunities for further research are discussed – not only for Ha Long, but for other actual or hopeful transitioning subsistence marketplaces whose leaders see tourism as a catalyst from economic hardship and subsistence-living toward enhanced QOL.

Hayek on the wisdom of prices: a reassessment

This paper re-examines Hayek's insights into the problem of knowledge in markets, and argues that his analysis remains pertinent but has serious flaws. His central thesis—that the market price system is essential for communicating information and coordinating transactions wherever knowledge is dispersed and innovation renders the future uncertain—remains a potent explanation for the failures of central economic planning. His analysis that aggregate statistics necessarily abstract from contextual and tacit knowledge has important but widely ignored implications for the contemporary use of statistics in financial risk models. The recent financial crisis, however, shows that market prices can give very misleading signals for long periods, and it represents a key example of ways in which Hayek's thesis is incomplete. In particular, Hayek's analysis falls short by ignoring the role of dominant narratives, analytical monocultures, self-reinforcing emotions, feedback loops, information asymmetries and market power in distorting the wisdom of prices.

The enduring allure of objective probability

Probability measures are properly considered subjective, if only as a result of the knowledge limitations of human experience. Even if objective probability can be demonstrated as an unambiguously verifiable property of the physical world, our necessarily imperfect access to such aspects of reality would necessitate the construction of subjective probability measures for examinations of human behavior. This paper will explore the distinction between subjective and purportedly objective probability in principle, and demonstrate that actual probabilities can only be subjective, at least ex ante. The paper will next examine the persistent efforts of philosophers, mathematicians, and particularly quantitatively-inclined social scientists, to construct and employ mistaken conceptions of purportedly objective probability. The neo-indeterminist interpretation of sub-atomic particle physics is addressed next, with its attempt to construct an objective-probabilistic account of reality based on the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. An explanation is suggested for the persistent allure of objective probability in the social sciences, which purports to offer a more economical and parsimonious basis for human behavior and the formation of expectations. The view that there are ontologically privileged, objectively-verifiable probabilities and expectations, will be examined and criticized. It appears to be one source of the discredited, though nonetheless widespread and persistent, belief in the efficacy and feasibility of central economic planning.

Vietnam

Vietnam is an evolving political economy and marketing system. Since the implementation of Doi Moi, the 1986 policy to invoke a shift from central economic planning to a more market-oriented system, the country has made extraordinary progress on several socioeconomic indicators. Some observers contend Vietnam is a development model; others suggest the country still has numerous challenges to overcome before it can reach its development goals. This article provides an overview of Vietnam’s socioeconomic development; it introduces eight refereed articles and four commentaries that comprise the scholarly contributions to the first special issue of the Journal of Macromarketing to feature research on a single country. Vietnam is that country. Contributors provide detailed research, analysis, and reflection on the interplay of markets, marketing, and society. Topics studied include system complexity and entrepreneurship, retailing evolution, consumption dynamics and societal wellness, family policy and consumption, education and human resource development, living standards and quality of life, ethical/unethical foreign direct investment, ritualistic consumption, and marketing, trade and protectionism, land policy and environmental sustainability, and implications for Vietnam’s economic and geopolitical future.

Transformations in the Ownership of The Szczecin and Świnoujście Seaports Authority between 1991 and 2000

Transformations in the ownership of state owned companies in Poland a! er 1989 played a pivotal role in the general political transformation which took place in Poland at that time. Those ownership changes were an essential element of the political transformation of Poland. The process of transforming the country’s economy from central economic planning to free market economy was started by Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s government. On October 9, 1989, the Council of Ministers accepted a document Guidelines and Directions of Poland’s Economic Policy which aimed at stabilizing the country’s economy and at transforming its economic system. " e stabilization programme was supposed to be implemented by January, 1990.3 " e second stage of the governmental plan was planned for the years 1990–1991 and one of its main tenets was a transformation of ownership rights. Krzysztof Lis, the government’s plenipotentiary for ownership transformation, was responsible for the organization and legislation of the process of privatizing Polish economy. T. Mazowiecki’s cabinet prepared both a draft for the new amendment of the legal act concerning state owned companies and a dra! of a new act about privatizing state owned companies.

English

Since the collapse of central economic planning in the world, former Iron Curtain Countries have been changing as social, economic and political structures. Some former socialist countries (such as Bulgaria, Slovenia and Romania) and Greece became full members of the EU. Some Balkan countries (such as Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Macedonia) lived through difficult war years. After the wars, they have started to struggle for the economic, social and political reconstruction process. Each country in the Balkan Peninsula wants bigger real per capita income, a better welfare level, and generally to become a developed country. But these countries have some political, economic and social problems in the development process. The aim of this paper is to analyze Balkan countries in terms of development indicators such as per capita GDP, population growth, life expectancy, consumption potential, education, national income and income distribution in the period of the 2000’s. In addition, new suggestions for accelerating the development process will be discussed at the end of the study. Key Words: Balkan Countries, Development, Development Indicators

Economic Planning and Industrial Policy: A Framework for Avoiding the Corner Solutions

The extreme of central economic planning or the other extreme of reliance only on market signals are not appropriate approaches to national economic planning as complete reliance on either extreme are fraught with serious limitations. Economic planning must find a workable middle way to encourage and support conditions that enhance economic growth. This note suggests some pragmatic guidelines and principles for a balanced framework for national economic planning.

Understanding the Role of Food in Rural Tourism Development in a Recovering Economy

Despite its primary, vital function of satisfying physiological needs, food can be the key factor in the tourist industry by adding value to the image of a destination and by reinforcing the tourists' experience in certain places. Till recently Croatian geographic characteristics presented key elements of market differentiation. However, the importance of food for tourism development has been recognized by Croatian authors. They mostly point out food as the driving force for health tourism and gastronomic offer preconditions for the development of rural tourism. This article addresses two dynamic segments of the economy: agriculture along with food production and tourism. In thisarticle we try to find out whether food presents an effective instrument for enhancing rural tourism development in a country emerging from war and transitioning from central economic planning to a market economy. Using data from a study on the sample of 300 tourists in 12 tourist destinations in Croatia, the authors find that foreign tourists mostly buy food during their holidays in Croatia due to high quality of the Croatian local food. Also, a large number of respondents think that Croatian food is more expensive than the food in their countries and experienced difficulties in obtaining and consuming local food. The main problem is that some Croatian tourists' entities have failed to promote local food and regional cuisine which results in ignorance on the part of tourists, thus also contributing to lower demand and consumption levels.

A Political Economic Introspection of the National Development of Mainland China

Adopting Marx's Historical Materialism Theory, I will discuss the interaction between the Market Economic System and the Ideology of Mainland China, treating the former as the bottom structure and the latter as the upper structure. I used the concept of double head structure of by Seliger and split Mainland China's official ideology into a core concept and a perimeter concept, in order to analyze the changes in the PRC's ideology. In addition to this research approach, I developed four introspections on Mainland China's political economy, namely from the perspectives of (1) the institutional economic school, (2) the Marxist political economy, (3) the classical liberal political economic school (Hayek as a representative), and (4) the modern liberal school (Dahl and Rawls as representatives). I will conclude, first, because the Chinese Communist Party adopted a Stalinist type of economic central planning during the Mao's ruling time, the trade cost of the central economic planning system was then bigger than the market economic system. As a result, a transformation was inevitable. Second, from the perspective of Dahl's and Rawls' works, the Chinese Communist Party's ideology or policy of social justice, in its recent stage, was still far from the authorized definition of distributional justice. Third, while the Chinese Communist Party claimed it represented the proletariat and owned the true democratic system, it did not even achieve the basic voting fairness target. Thus, how can it claim that it owns the true democratic system?

Productivity efficiencies in Ukrainian polyclinics: lessons for health system transitions from differential responses to market changes

Ukraine’s recent elections revealed deep divisions between eastern regions, which favored central economic planning, and western regions, which preferred more free market reforms. This study compares polyclinics in Ukraine to see if the inflexibility of Soviet-style planned economies results in lower economic efficiency in eastern regions. Using data from two geopolitical regions, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) scores for polyclinic efficiencies are modeled as a function of demographic and economic determinants. Surprisingly, results indicate that polyclinics in western Ukraine are less efficient. Possible explanations, including case mix intensity, responsiveness to local preferences, physician entrepreneurial behavior and a legacy of inequitable funding, are discussed.

Mihaela Robila (Ed.). FAMILIES IN EASTERN EUROPE: CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE IN FAMILY RESEARCH

Mihaela Robila (Ed.). FAMILIES IN EASTERN EUROPE: CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVE IN FAMILY RESEARCH. Volume 5, Inc, 2004, pp.276, Price: 97,95 US$ (Hardcover).This anthology examines the impacts of the fall of communism on families in Eastern Europe. Within a few years a transition from central economic planning to privatization and marked-regulated economics had to be coped with. Although the effects of the economic and political changes on the individual lifestyles were dramatic, the research on families in Eastern Europe is still scarce. Mihaela Robila wants to fills this void in literature and presents a timely and comprehensive analysis of family issues. The book concentrates on the development since the beginning of the 1990s and compiles articles from fourteen Eastern European countries. Each of the article is mainly written by Eastern European scholars: Marina A. Adler (East Germany), Hana Maoilcova (Czech), Jarmila Filadelfiova (Slovakia), Anna Titkow and Danuta Duch (Poland), Mirjana Ule (Slovenia), Divna Lakinska-Popovska and Suzana Bornarova (Macedonia), Olga Toth (Hungary), Mihaela Robila (Romania), Raya Staykova (Bulgaria), Valentina Bodrug-Lungu (Moldavia), Tatiana Zhurzhenko (Ukraine), Irena Juozeliuniene and Loreta Kuzmickaite (Lithuania), Parsala Egilte (Latvia) as well as Valentina I. Uspenskaya and Dmitry Y. Borodin (Russia).The book proceeds as follows. The editorial introduction describes the powerful impact of communism on the societal level as well as on the family level. Furthermore, it focuses on the shared characteristics of the changing family demographics, family relations, childbearing practices and family policies in interrelation with the collapse of the socialistic system. After the first chapter - the editor's introduction - fourteen chapters, each comprising approximately fifteen pages, is devoted to every single country. All articles are organized in similar sections. The first part focuses on the socio historic and economic context of each country. Following, the change in family structures and family formation processes is shown with the help of aggregate data, i.e. the development of birth rates, marriage rates, age at first marriage or age at first birth are available. This part is particularly remarkable because it presents not only relatively easily available current statistics but also developments until the time of communism. This economic and political transformation process which families in Eastern Europe have to cope with is not only closely related to shifting family structures, but also to changes in family relations. …

On the (Supposed) Demise of Liberalism in American Politics

On the (Supposed) Demise of Liberalism in American Politics Mark P. Moore (bio) Happy Days Are Here Again: The 1932 Democratic Convention, the Emergence of FDR–and How America Was Changed Forever. By Steve Neal . New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2004; pp 371 $26.95 cloth. The Fall of the House of Roosevelt: Brokers of Ideas and Power from FDR to LBJ. By Michael Janeway . New York: Columbia University Press, 2004; pp xiv + 284 $27.50 cloth. Why Trust Matters: Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism. By Marc J. Hetherington . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005; pp xvii + 176 $35.00 cloth. In what appears to be a fierce attack on all fronts, American liberalism faces a tremendous challenge from conservatives for political survival at the turn of the twenty-first century. If more intense, however, the attack is not new.1 As James T. Kloppenberg claimed at the end of the twentieth century, "For fifty years now the ideas and policies of American liberalism have been on the defensive, first against charges of communism or socialism, more recently against charges of moral as well as economic apostasy."2 In what E. J. Donne Jr., described as "the politics of accusation," such charges reflect "a deep and fundamental polarization of opinion among political elites."3 During the 1950s, for example, conservatives increased their attacks on New Deal politics for its central economic planning and large national state on the grounds that it threatened to lead the nation to totalitarianism. Conservatives in the 1960s, particularly Barry Goldwater, accused liberals of attempting to eliminate private property rights, increase the role of government in private lives, and join [End Page 107] ranks with Communists.4 When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, he and his fellow conservatives charged liberalism with being responsible for the breakdown of morals, families, communities, and organized religion. Reagan stigmatized liberalism to the point where his vice president and successor, George Bush, drew blood in the 1988 election by simply associating his opponent, Michael Dukakis, with the "L-word." How did "liberal" get to be such a dirty word? Part of the problem can be attributed to a lack of what W. Lance Bennett called "governing ideas" coming from the liberal camp, that is, "a broad set of national goals supported by enough citizens and power holders within institutions to sustain new courses of action aimed at changing basic social and economic conditions."5 While Bennett believed that governing ideas were lacking in general, he argued that in recent years Democrats have not been able to challenge the traditional conservative ideas of less government, less intrusion into private lives, and less regulation. This has not always been the case. Bennett also noted that Roosevelt's prevailing New Deal was based in essence on "the idea of a more activist government that would help people who could not solve their own problems."6 Then, in the years following the New Deal, liberalism promoted further changes in social and economic conditions with governing ideas such as the reconciliation of racial discrimination and the promise of social equality. The moral force of liberalism, established in American politics by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, and grounded in the ideal of equality as well as the ideal of individual freedom, brought many changes in social and economic conditions during the 1950s and early 1960s with the civil rights movement, but by the mid-1960s that force started to decline. Senator Goldwater may have lost in a landslide vote to Lyndon Johnson in 1964, but he captured five states in the Deep South and caught the attention of others who were scared and angry about what conservatives identified as undesirable products of The Great Society and the civil rights revolution. As James Sundquist of the Brookings Institution observed, "Ghetto riots, campus riots, street crime, anti-Vietnam marches, poor people's marches, drugs, pornography, welfarism, rising taxes, all had a common thread: the break down of family and social discipline, of concepts of duty, of respect for law, of public and private morality."7 Increasingly, conservatives characterized the successes of liberal Democrats in government in terms of excess. While liberals claimed great accomplishments...

Budgeting under central economic planning in china, 1949-1978

This paper examines public budgeting in the first 30 years of China under central economic planning and one-party system. The research question is whether budgeting operates as it does under market economy in a democratic system. Analysis of historical documents finds that as a subordinate to central economic planning, budgeting was not able to play its functions. Though China was successful in employing all fiscal and monetary means to channel resources into targeted policy areas, budgeting was not effectively used as an administrative instrument. In the 30 years examined, the country seemed to be searching in vain for a workable budgeting system so as to avoid repeated financial frustrations.