This article is an overview of the contribution made by economic Sovietology to mainstream economics. The long debate about the universal applicability of mainstream economics is reconsidered in the light of the Soviet experience. Information is provided on the contribution of the study of the Soviet economy to fields as diverse as the measurement of economic growth, institutional economics, economic administration, the economics of property rights, the economics of the informal sector, the economics of famines, the Austrian critique of general equilibrium theory, and incentives.
