The Dictator’s Dilemma: to Punish or to Assist? Plan Failures and Interventions under Stalin

Andrei Markevich

No 269765, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: A dictator issues an order, but the order is not carried out. The dictator does not know whether the order failed because the agent behaved opportunistically, or because his order contained some mistake. Imperfect information creates his dilemma: whether to punish the agent, or assist her or both. This paper modelsthe dictator’s intervention when an order fails. The analysis links the dictator’s coercive policy with the softness of budget constraints. The model is verified against the history of Stalin’s dictatorship, using statistical evidence extracted from the formerly secret records of the Communist Party's "control commission".

Keywords: Agricultural and Food Policy; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44
Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/269765/files/twerp_816.pdf (application/pdf)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/269765/files/twerp_816.pdf?subformat=pdfa (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Dictator’s Dilemma: to Punish or to Assist? Plan Failures and Interventions under Stalin (2007)
Working Paper: The Dictator’s Dilemma: to Punish or to Assist? Plan Failures and Interventions under Stalin (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:269765

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.269765

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().