Comparing iterative planning procedures

This comment reconsiders the comparison of E. Malinvaud's (in E. Malinvaud and M. O. L. Bacharach, Eds., Activity Analysis in the Theory of Growth and Planning, pp. 170-208. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1967) and P. Chander's (Econometrica 46,4:761-777, July 1978) iterative planning procedures recently presented by S. J. Clark (J. Comp. Econom. 13, 1:61-84, Mar. 1989). It demonstrates clearly the effect that increasing the number of produced goods has on the costs of these procedures. It considers explicitly the setup costs of putting in place the institutional requirements of these procedures. It also shows that Chander's procedure can be suitably modified so as to have a positive interpretation as well, in that it can be claimed to correspond to the competitive price adjustment process.