How Much Control is Enough? Monitoring and Enforcement under Stalin

Andrei Markevich

No 269778, Economic Research Papers from University of Warwick - Department of Economics

Abstract: In hierarchies, agents’ hidden actions increase principals' transactions costs and give rise to a demand for monitoring and enforcement. The fact that the latter are costly raises questions about their scope, organisation, and type. How much control is enough? The paper uses historical records to examine Stalin’s answers to this question. We find that Stalin's behaviour was consistent with his aiming to maximise the efficiency of the Soviet system of control subject to the loyalty of his inspectors and the risk of a “chaos of orders” arising from parallel centres of power.

Keywords: International Development; Political Economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38
Date: 2007-07-12
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: How Much Control is Enough? Monitoring and Enforcement under Stalin (2007)
Working Paper: How Much Control is Enough? Monitoring and Enforcement under Stalin (2007)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:uwarer:269778

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.269778

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