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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate directly the relationship between the efficiency with which resources are allocated under central planning and the level of development of the economy, and to determine whether certain types of economic reform strategy are more effective than others. This is accomplished by measuring the allocative efficiency of one specific sector of the economy of five socialist countries, Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Rumania. The results indicate that, despite the efforts at reform of the more advanced countries, allocative efficiency is inversely related to the level of development and also appears to be related to the specific type of reform undertaken.
This paper develops a methodology for measuring the static efficiency of the export sector of centrally planned economies by means of a linear programming model. This model is utilized to measure the efficiency of export allocation in Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Hungary, Poland and Rumania, during 1969. The results demonstrate that, under central planning, the efficiency of resource allocation declines as the level of development of the economy increases. Furthermore, we find that in the Hungarian economy, which has been the object of extensive reforms, allocative efficiency is significantly worse than in the other East European countries. Consequently, we conclude that pressure for economic reforms in Eastern Europe will continue, but that the scope of these reforms will be more limited in scope than the Hungarian experiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper alternative approaches to intertemporal allocation and prices are considered (Section I) and used to reject some claims and criticisms on the equality of transformation rates and relative prices in an intertemporal framework appeared in recent literature (Section II). It is argued that the extension of conventional results to the intertemporal case is prevented by the nature of intertemporal exchange in a capitalist economy (Section III).
In recent economic literature a number of conflicting views have been expressed about the equality between interest rates, rates of return on investment, and rates of time preference; and about the very notion of internal rate of return. R.M. So-Low regards such equality as a particularly significant result, and treats the notion of the internal rate of return as the very foundation of capital theory (1963, 1966, 1967). L.L. PASINETTI denies that such an equality can hold even within the Fisherian framework (1969). C.R.S. DOUGHERTY vindicates the legitimacy of the Fisherian approach and claims it is 'dynamic', and regards the internal rate of return as an element of a 'search rule' for consumption optimization. In this paper alternative approaches to intertemporal allocation and prices are considered (Section 1) and used to reject these claims and criticisms on the equality of transformation rates and relative prices in an intertemporal framework, while the internal rate of return appears to have neither theoretical nor operational significance (Section 2). It is argued that the extension of conventional results to the intertemporal case is prevented by the nature of intertemporal exchange in a capitalist economy, namely by the absence of markets for future manufactured commodities. Since money is the only forward market extant (with the exception of forward markets for a handful of primary products) interest rates cannot be considered to measure rates of return on or preference rates for anything other than... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an overview of current recycling policies in contemporary China within the broader context of China's efforts to protect and improve her social and physical environment. Starting with an interpretation of China's traditional agriculture as a 'recycling' and energy producing economy, different efforts to improve the use of organic waste materials in agriculture are shown to have had positive results which, however, could be further improved by modern methods of recycling developed in the USA and other industrialized countries. The recovery of materials and their re-use or, as it is called in the Chinese literature, 'turning the harmful into the beneficial' may be regarded as one of the guiding principles of China's anti-pollution policies not only in agriculture but also in industry where both labor intensive methods and modern equipment are in operation. Control of inputs and location are shown to play an additional role in China's environmental policies. The paper concludes with a presentation of the Chinese interpretation of the causes of environmental disruption in the light of Chinese sources available in translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that there are no insuperable obstacles to making quantitative science-aided comparisons of the welfare effects of economic policies on different people. This contradicts the belief commonly held by economists that in principle meaningful interpersonal utility comparisons cannot be made.
The paper is intended as a contribution to the theory of governmental decision-making with respect to social redistribution problems. Examples of such problems include a) taxation and welfare transfers, i.e., who among the citizens should retain which portions of the national product; and b) population policy, i.e., how many people should be allowed to become claimants to the national wealth. The paper is not intended to cast any light whatsoever on positive consumer choice theory or the psychological study of decision-making. The approach described here is generally consistent with the recent discussion of 'social indicators'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper analyzes J. K. GALBRAITH's new vision of the economic system of the U.S.A., seen as an example of popular institutionalist thinking. Such a critique seems important because of GALBRAITH's claim to a closed and complete doctrine and because of the growing influence of his vulgarized economics. An examination of his methods discovers deficiencies of the systemic approach, obscurities in concept formation, arbitrary formulations of behavioral theories, purely persuasive modes of argumentation and techniques of immunization against contrary evidence. An analysis of his system of political economy shows that it lacks a genuine theory of the state and a truly consistent explanation of inequalities of power. So his programme of reforms and of measures of economic policy rests upon rather weak methodological and theoretical foundations. SUBSTITUTION ALONG THE TIME AXIS CARL CHRISTIAN VON WEIZSCKER. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I present a model of exchange-rate equilibrium that incorporates the purchasing-power-parity and factor-price-equalization theories along the lines suggested by HOUTHAKKER's earlier work. I also provide a test of how well this model predicts real-world behavior. The model is outlined in Section I and its implications for computing purchasing power parity examined in Section II. Then in Section III BALASSA's econometric test of the model is shown to be inapplicable, and an alternative test is presented in Section IV. Some concluding remarks in support of the theory are offered in Section V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative efficiency of several basically different health care systems by considering their market structure and its implication on the price and output of health care services.
The present article evaluates relative efficiency of four alternative health care systems; namely, the physician controlled non-profit hospital, the proprietary hospital, consumer controlled hospital and the government controlled hospitals. The analysis used in the study utilizes the theories of economics of cooperation. The scope of the study is limited only to the analysis of the nature of the market structure and its implications on the price and output of health care services and the costs and benefits associated with the zero individual user costs. Our conclusions are that: 1. The price and output tends to be close to the socially optimum level under the open-member consumers' coop hospitals; whereas the de facto closed-member producers' coop for the staff physician (as in the U.S.), output tends to be suboptimal and the price tends to be supra optimal. The equilibrium output and price for the proprietary hospitals and the hospitals under the British-Swedish systems can be shown to fall somewhere between these two extremes. 2. Furthermore, if the individual user cost is reduced to zero through the government finance or insurance coverage, the social cost of providing health care and the waste of resources tends to be larger under the proposed U.S. plans than under the hypothetical model and British-Swedish system, largely due to the inelastic supply response of the existing health care industry in the U. S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reviews and assesses recent developments in transport planning techniques and makes suggestions on those aspects on which further research could most productively focus. Part I deals with various traffic forecasting methods, a field in which newer microeconomic decision models appear to provide promising results. Part II analyzes the use and limits of various planning techniques at the project, modal network and intermodal level, with particular emphasis on multi-parametric simulation models; special attention is directed at the interdependence of investment, pricing, taxes/subsidies and access control. Part III is concerned with some ambitious but rather unsatisfactory attempts of predicting the locational impact of changes in the transport sector on other sectors of the economy; consistency analysis, dynamic planning and further basic line data collection, necessary to formulate models of higher predictive value, are suggested. Part IV discusses the implications of using transport policy as an instrument for explicitly influencing the desired regional pattern of economical and social activities, an area to which priority of further research should be given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose behind the use of shadow prices is to insure that the evaluation of public investment projects, when the selection criterion is that of maximizing social net present value, accounts for all social costs and benefits correctly. When there is an excess of wages actually paid over social opportunity costs, this excess should be counted as part of the benefits of the project. Alternatively, the shadow wage employed for purposes of labor cost calculation should reflect the social valuation of the alternative foregone.

This paper examines three issues arising in connection with the shadow pricing of labor in developing economies. The first issue is how to calculate the social opportunity cost of labor. The second -- how much weight to attach to the social cost (and how much to the actual wage) for purposes of shadow wage calculation. The third -- how to coordinate shadow pricing with appropriate fiscal measures so as to achieve allocative efficiency and a socially desired accumulation rate.
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The purpose of this paper is to develop a general framework for a neo-Ricardian approach to the analysis of trade. Whilst, to some extent, it is pedagogic[4], it does also try to reach some new conclusions in its consideration of trade between countries with different techniques, between countries having available a multiplicity of techniques, and between countries having planned economies. But its chief purpose is to emphasize that the analysis of international trade can be viewed essentially as a particular problem of the choice of technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent development in the international monetary sphere have renewed interest in the relations between exchange-rate adjustment and the international transmission of business cycles. This paper is addressed to some simple but important defects in the construction of macroeconomic models that recur, as far as I am aware, in all recent contributions to this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of a quasi-periodic cycle in growth rates of major economic indicators has become one of the more popular stylized facts in interpreting postwar macro-dynamics. In this paper, we examine the statistical record of sixteen OECD countries over the 1950-1970 period to determine the degree of regularity in movements of annual growth rates in both GNP and several disaggregated components. The WALLIS-MOORE test is employed to establish the significance of the deviation of growth rate fluctuations from those of a purely random series. In only 13 of the 90 series investigated were these deviations statistically significant and in only two countries, Germany and Finland, were more than one growth series significantly non-random. These results suggest that there is little statistical significance to the growth cycle hypothesis from an annual perspective and that postwar macro-dynamics generally fail to reflect in the growth rate domain much of the regularity observed in the more traditional business cycle of the prewar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the extent of multi-plant operation among leading firms in twelve industries and six nations is analyzed statistically to shed light on the first three questions. The much more difficult fourth question, on the advantages of multi-plant size, can be touched upon only peripherally. It is explored thoroughly in a complementary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we intend to take issue with several of the basic assumptions of postwar model builders. Three important strands running through much of current dynamic theory are rejected:
(a) that the DOMAR effect leads to a razor's edge; (b) that constraints or ceilings must be destabilizing and (c) that it is a proper or enlightening procedure in dynamic analysis to assume away all problems of effective demand[3].
The general idea of the dual role of investment is here retained. Indeed, we stress the likelihood of investment leading to unequal effects on output and capital at different periods of the cycle; in other words, a 'variable DOMAR effect'. It is further argued that constraints do operate in the normal functioning of a capitalist system in such a way as to limit the movements of investment and demand, but the meaning of a constraint or ceiling is modified. What is argued is that it does not help to think in terms of an absolute ceiling on, say, output of capital goods that operates during the normal course of the boom. Rather, it is proper to think of 'relative' ceilings; i.e., of increasing inelasticities of supply during the mid and late stages of the boom[4]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper we intend to advance the discussion by generalizing the above results to the case of n issues each comprising m alternatives and to weak preference orderings of voters. Under the conditions to be formulated situations allowing logrolling can occur for most decision rules considered, if the number of issues is big enough. All logrolling situations imply circular social preference orderings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]