Expert board:

• Scientific Council of RAS on economic history;
• Research and Educational Center «The economic history of Central Russia and the Middle Volga region» of Ogarev Mordovia State University;
• Center of Economic History of  Lomonosov Moscow State University

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ISSN 2409-630X (Print), ISSN 2618-916X (Online)

DOI: 10.15507/2409-630X.055.017.202104.370-384

УДК 94 (47): 338.26

Dmitry V. Didenko

Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (Moscow, Russia),

e-mail: didenko-dv@ranepa.ru

 

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

 

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.

Keywords: institutional economic history, Soviet economy, Gosplan, economic policy, economic research.

For citation: Didenko D. V.  Changes in Quality of Economic Planning in the Late USSR: Technological and Institutional Dynamics.  Ekonomicheskaya istoriya = Russian Journal of Economic History. 2021; 17(4): 370–384. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.15507/2409-630X.055.017.202104.370-384.

Acknowledgements: The study was supported by RFBR project No. 19-010-00680 “A research into the institutional mechanism of interaction between academic research and economic management in the USSR (mid-1950s – late 1980s) in light of strategic planning development in the public sector of Russia’s economy”. The author thanks L. I. Borodkin for his kind assistance and valuable advice when drafting the research concept, A. V. Safronov for informative discussions and useful suggestions, and E. V. Smoliakova for her technical support in creation of the data set, on which the study is based. The author accepts full responsibility for all information, conclusions and assessments, as well as for all remaining shortcomings of this article.

 

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