Harrison, Mark, 1949- (2001) Are command economies unstable? Why did the Soviet economy collapse? Working Paper. University of Warwick, Department of Economics, Coventry.

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Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet economy at the end of the 1980s is ascribed to command failure. The likely sources of command failure and economic collapse in the Soviet case are analysed in terms of the payoffs to a dictator who controls the level of coercion and producers who control the level of effort. This approach is used to frame an analytical narrative of the evolution of the Soviet system under Brezhnev and Gorbachev.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions D History General and Old World > DK Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Communism -- Soviet Union, Dictatorship -- Soviet Union, Economics -- Political aspects, Soviet Union -- Economic policy, Soviet Union -- Economic conditions
Series Name:	Warwick economic research papers
Publisher:	University of Warwick, Department of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Date:	3 May 2001
Number:	No.604
Number of Pages:	16
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Description:	The paper is a nontechnical version of TWERPS no. 602
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/1579

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