Changes in Quality of Economic Planning in the Late USSR: Technological and Institutional Dynamics

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 370-384
Author(s):  
Dmitry V. Didenko
Keyword(s):  
National Income ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
The State ◽  
Production Volume ◽  
Planning Commission ◽  
State Planning ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
State Planning Commission

Introduction. Studying the Soviet economic performance is important in searching for arguments in the ongoing debate on the possibilities of routine and strategic planning application for economic development of the Russian Federation. The purpose of the article is to identify the dynamics of the planning quality of the Soviet economy in the framework of the institutional approach to economic history. Materials and Methods. The author constructed a data set filled with available information on key growth indicators (national income, production volume and labor productivity, capital investment) targeted in five-year and annual plans, which passed their way from initial drafts proposed by academic economists and employees of the State Planning Commission to approved legal documents, and to the further implementation, presented in branch (industry, agriculture, retail) and spatial (union republics) breakdown. The archival data on the growing activity of the State Planning Commission for revising the approved planned indicators is of our primary contribution. Results. The author highlights the factors underlying the deviations for key planned aggregated indicators that arose at various stages of their preparation, adoption and revision, between their approved figures and actual performance. The results of the data analysis basically confirmed our hypothesis that the technological improvement of the planning process was largely offset by the deterioration of institutional interactions between its subjects. Discussion and Conclusion. While there were signs of an increase in the role of scientists in the process of drafting five-year plans from the second half of the 1950s to the mid-1970s, then from the second half of the 1970s we find less and less evidence that they played a meaningful role in the short and medium term planning processes. On the other hand, our analysis revealed a significantly higher level of fulfillment in annual breakdown compared to five-year one. This confirms the view that just annual plans performed more operational functions, as compared to the motivational ones, in managing the Soviet economy.

Some Speculations on the Return of the Regions: Parallels with the Past

1978 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 623-638 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothy J. Solinger
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
State Council ◽  
Planning Commission ◽  
State Planning ◽  
The Past ◽  
State Planning Commission ◽  
Regional Basis

At the National Conference on Learning from Taching in Industry, held in Peking in May 1977, vice-premier of the State Council, Yu Ch'iu-li, first publicly mentioned the recreation of regional “economic systems.” Although there has been no reference to any administration for governing these regions, the use of the term “systems” (t'i-hsi), which must be “established,” suggests organized co-ordination on a regional basis. Several Hong Kong-based journals that report on current Chinese economic or political developments took note of Yu's remarks, speculating, respectively, that they were to serve economic development or defence goals, or that they might represent a concession to provincial leaders demanding autonomy. Thereafter, no further word of these regions surfaced for over four months. Then, in mid-September, in an article on socialist construction, the State Planning Commission drew attention again to these regions.

scholarly journals Nonlinear Evolution and Stable Growth of Regional Industry (for Five-Year Planning of Economic Development of the Irkutsk Region)

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-515
Author(s):  
Sergey Chuprov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
The State ◽  
Successful Implementation ◽  
Planning Commission ◽  
State Planning ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Irkutsk Region ◽  
State Planning Commission ◽  
Regional Budget ◽  
Stable Growth

Involvement of representations of nonlinear dynamics in the analysis of the functioning of industrial enterprises in a non-stationary environment provides a key to understanding the phenomena they experience — nontrivial cardinal perestroikas. Phases of slow and fast changes, periods of leaps and bounds in the complex evolution of enterprise activity reveal its inherent nonlinearity and find expression in the features of stable and unstable enterprise behavior. From these conceptual positions, the article offers a cursory analysis and interpretation of trends in the functioning of the industry of the Irkutsk region in 2015–2019 with an emphasis on the stable growth of indicators of the regional economy, in particular, gross regional pro­duct, regional budget revenues and fixed investment. The damping effect on sharp fluctuations in the macroenvironment and imparting pace of development to the regional industry was achieved thanks to a constructive public-private partnership, which served as the motive for the development and successful implementation of the State Plan for Social and Economic Development of the Irkutsk Region for 2019–2023 (State Planning Commission). A number of priority directions of the State Planning Commission and industrial points of growth in the Irkutsk region and the phenomenon of the evolution of enterprises with a mixture of stable states of various levels of efficiency are stated.

Chronicle

1930 ◽  
Vol 26 (7) ◽  
pp. 138-142
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
National Economy ◽  
Medical Training ◽  
Medical Personnel ◽  
Training System ◽  
The State ◽  
Planning Commission ◽  
State Planning ◽  
State Planning Commission ◽  
Medical Training System

Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR on the reorganization of the medical training system. After listening to the report of the State Planning Commission. The RSFSR about the system of training medical personnel, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR notes that the existing system of training medical personnel but meets the needs that are presented in the field of public health of the RSFSR by the conditions of socialist reconstruction of the national economy.

scholarly journals Disagreements among ministries and pressure on the State Planning Committee in the Soviet economy in the early 1950s

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 220-224
Author(s):  
Alexey Vladimirovich Zaharchenko
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Development ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
The State ◽  
Planning Committee ◽  
Allocation Of Resources ◽  
Future Planning ◽  
State Planning ◽  
The Government ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Interdepartmental Commission

The following paper deals with mechanisms for working out compromise solutions when discussing the plan for the USSR national economy development in 1951-1955. The sources analysis (notes of ministries heads to the government, the Gosplans reports and its projects for the development of the Soviet economy for the period 1951-1955) shows there were disagreements between the central planning body and the economic agencies. The position of the State Planning Committee, which sought to draw up a balanced plan, consisted in the allocation of resources and economic obligations between ministries. The ministries, for their part, were inclined to offer lower figures for the growth of production indicators and overestimated amounts of resources to implement the plans. Divergences in positions were regulated by a special interdepartmental commission on disagreements, its proposals were taken as a basis by the government and the State Planning Committee to amend the current and future planning of the industrial development of the USSR. The results of the study allow us to conclude that the planned economy was actually the economy of approvals. In this system, government directives were viewed as a result of an interagency struggle between planners and production workers, where the State Planning Committee counterbalanced the ambitions of ministries. However, active lobbyism of ministers limited the possibilities of planners, as evidenced by the documents of the Dispute Commission.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document