Coercion, compliance and the collapse of the soviet command economy

Harrison, Mark

Coercion, compliance and the collapse of the soviet command economy

The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics

Abstract: Are command systems that rest on coercion inherently unstable, and did the Soviet economy collapse for this reason? Postwar evidence is inconsistent with the hypothesis that the Soviet economy was unstable. If it was not unstable, why did it collapse? A repeated game of coordination between a dictator and producers shows that a high level of coercion may yield a stable high–output equilibrium, that the command economy contains a time–consistency problem for central planners, and that a transition to a low state of coercion and performance in which everyone’s income falls may be brought about by rising monitoring costs and the dictator’s loss of reputation. The facts of the Soviet case are consistent with a collapse triggered when the dictator threw in the towel.

Keywords: COMMAND; ECONOMY; DICTATORSHIP; INCENTIVES; MONITORING; SOVIET UNION; TIME–CONSISTENCY (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 D82 P21 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2001
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2008/twerp602.pdf

Related works:
Chapter: Coercion, Compliance, and the Collapse of the Soviet Command Economy (2014)
Journal Article: Coercion, compliance, and the collapse of the Soviet command economy (2002)
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:wrk:warwec:602

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) from University of Warwick, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Margaret Nash ().