Economic planning in noncommunist countries

In spite of increasing professionalism in the formulation of development plans on paper, the practical performance of the developing countries in implementing development plans of any complexity has not been very encouraging. Development plans, however elaborately formulated on paper, rarely get beyond the first and most obvious practical hurdle, namely, how to equate the total amount of investable resources required to fulfill the target rates of economic development set by the plan with the total supply of investable resources. This arises from the practice of starting with some minimum “politically acceptable” target rate of economic growth while optimistically assuming that the problem of providing the necessary resources will somehow look after itself. This is the opposite of realistic planning, which should start from the supply of available resources and find out the maximum possible rate of economic growth that can be got out of these resources. There also appears to be a tendency to be overly optimistic as to the availability of resources and to underestimate the costs of projects. Very often, development plans have been cut short in midstream as balance of payments difficulties arising from this optimism have led the authorities to curtail their efforts sharply. Sometimes, also, the plan may be deliberately drawn up larger than can be sustained out of the available domestic resources as an elaborate window-dressing exercise to obtain a greater amount of external aid. When external aid fails to fill the planned gap in resources, the typical reaction is not to reduce the size of the plan but to take the politically less painful (and the administratively simpler) expedient of keeping to the publicly declared target rates of the plan and then trying to fill the gap in resources out of “forced saving,” which it is hoped will be generated by budget deficits and inflation. Unfortunately this “forced saving” approach has not worked in most developing countries, because the public soon loses confidence in the stability of the purchasing power of money as prices tend to rise in step with increases in government expenditure. The pressure of domestic inflation increases the pressure of demand for imports, while rising domestic production costs discourage expansion of exports.

This disequilibrium situation may be eased by raising the rate of interest to reduce the demand for investable funds and to encourage saving, and by devaluation of the currency to discourage imports and encourage exports. Some governments have done so. But many governments in developing countries generally prefer to maintain artificially low rates of interest and to supply cheap loans to the public sector and to some favoured sections of the private sector engaged in modern manufacturing industry. Many are also reluctant to devalue for fear of further raises in prices through speculation and the higher costs of imported goods. Thus, many tend to rely heavily on detailed administrative controls and import licensing to ration the scarce supply of investable funds and foreign exchange. The attempt to control the entire economy in detail through a network of direct administrative controls inevitably results in inefficiency and delays, aggravated by the inadequacy of the administrative machinery and a shortage of competent civil servants. The closer the “integration” planned between different sectors of the economy, the greater the damage to efficient coordination, since delay in one sector causes widespread delays in others.

The main weaknesses of the formal “quantitative” economic development plans are that they distract attention from a variety of important qualitative factors and focus on physical quantities rather than incentives. Qualitative factors include such matters as the practical capacity of the administrative machinery to implement the plan, the degree of political stability, and the extent of public confidence in the government’s willingness and ability to carry out stated aims, which are crucial for the practical success of planning. Focus on physical quantities seems to result from a perceived need to indicate target levels of output of individual commodities; it distracts from the important fact that much economic activity is undertaken within the private sector and is responsive to incentives. Plans have tended to induce efforts to implement controls over private-sector activities. These have been effective to a large extent in preventing unplanned production activities, but they have been less effective in inducing desired increases in output without the appropriate incentives. The developing countries might do much better with a less comprehensive type of planning, making a greater use of indirect controls through the market mechanism and concentrating attention on the breaking of bottlenecks, particularly to the expansion of production in agriculture and export industries. Some developing countries have in fact succeeded in attaining rapid rates of growth just by concentrating on these vital sectors of the economy without an elaborate paraphernalia of planning.

General works on Soviet-type planning include Alec Nove, The Soviet Economy, 3rd ed. (1986); Paul R. Gregory and Robert C. Stuart, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, 3rd ed. (1986); Michael Ellman, Socialist Planning (1979); Marie Lavigne, The Socialist Economies of the Soviet Union and Europe (1974; originally published in French, 1970); Trevor Buck and John Cole, Modern Soviet Economic Performance (1987); David A. Dyker, The Future of the Soviet Economic Planning System (1985); Abram Bergson and Herbert S. Levine (eds.), The Soviet Economy: Toward the Year 2000 (1983); and P.J.D. Wiles, Economic Institutions Compared (1977). For historical background, see Alec Nove, An Economic History of the U.S.S.R. (1969, reprinted with revisions, 1982); and the highly detailed and well-documented survey of the creation of the system in Edward Hallett Carr and R.W. Davies, Foundations of the Planned Economy, 1926–29, 3 vol. in 5 (1969–76). For a discussion of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reform program, see Abel Aganbegyan, The Challenge: Economics of Perestroika, trans. from Russian (1988). Fundamental theoretical discussions are offered in János Kornai, Economics of Shortage, trans. from Hungarian, 2 vol. (1979, reissued 1980); V.V. Novozhilov, Problems of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Optimal Planning (1970; originally published in Russian, 1967); Joseph S. Berliner, The Innovation Decision in Soviet Industry (1976); and on a more empirical level, Ronald Amann, Julian Cooper, and R.W. Davies (eds.), The Technological Level of Soviet Industry (1977).

On social policy, see Alastair McAuley, Economic Welfare in the Soviet Union (1979). On foreign trade, see Franklyn D. Holzman, Foreign Trade Under Central Planning (1974); and Philip Hanson, Trade and Technology in Soviet-Western Relations (1981). Analyses of agricultural development include Stefan Hedlund, Crisis in Soviet Agriculture (1984); D. Gale Johnson and Karen McConnell Brooks, Prospects for Soviet Agriculture in the 1980s (1983); and Karl-Eugen Wädekin, Agrarian Policies in Communist Europe (1982). More general works on socialist planning are Włodzimierz Brus, The Economics and Politics of Socialism (1983); Alec Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (1983); and Branko Horvat, The Political Economy of Socialism: A Marxist Social Theory (1982). On other eastern European countries, see David Granick, Enterprise Guidance in Eastern Europe: Comparison of Four Socialist Economies (1975); Ljubo Sirc, The Yugoslav Economy Under Self-Management (1979); and János Kornai, Contradictions and Dilemmas: Studies on the Socialist Economy and Society (1986; originally published in Hungarian, 1983), on Hungary. On the background to Chinese reforms, see Mark Selden and Victor Lippit (eds.), The Transition to Socialism in China (1982).

A historical introduction to the development of economic planning in western Europe is provided in M.M. Postan, An Economic History of Western Europe, 1945–1964 (1967). A major technique of planning is discussed in Harold A. Hovey, The Planning-Programming-Budgeting Approach to Government Decision-Making (1968). Techniques of measuring social aspects of economic growth are explored in Eleanor Bernert Sheldon and Wilbert E. Moore (eds.), Indicators of Social Change: Concepts and Measurements (1968). Later assessments of the appropriate role of government with respect to planning include Samuel Brittan, The Role and Limits of Government: Essays in Political Economy (1983, reissued 1987); Leo Pliatzky, Paying and Choosing: The Intelligent Person’s Guide to the Mixed Economy (1985); and Alice M. Rivlin (ed.), Economic Choices 1984 (1984). A general survey of problems faced by governments in improving overall economic performance is given in Structural Adjustment and Economic Performance (1987), a collection of data prepared for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

A good introduction to the theory and practice of economic planning in the developing countries is W. Arthur Lewis, Development Planning: The Essentials of Economic Policy (1966), which illustrates the various stages of drawing up a consistent development plan but also emphasizes that sound fundamental economic policies are more important than formal planning techniques. Albert Waterston, Development Planning: Lessons of Experience (1965, reissued 1974), is a well-documented survey of development plans in various countries, particularly good in discussing the various administrative and fiscal problems of development planning. Wolfgang F. Stolper, Planning Without Facts: Lessons in Resource Allocation from Nigeria’s Development (1966), is a case study with a pragmatic and general approach to development planning. Later research includes William R. Cline and Sidney Weintraub (eds.), Economic Stabilization in Developing Countries (1981), essays on a range of topics; David Bevan et al., East African Lessons on Economic Liberalization, (1987); a study of the effectiveness of economic incentives; Paul M. Lubeck (ed.), The African Bourgeoisie: Capitalist Development in Nigeria, Kenya, and the Ivory Coast (1987), a study of the current state of African economies; and Norman Gemmel (ed.), Surveys in Development Economics (1987), a review of contemporary opinion on the subject.