The Theory and Measurement of Macroeconomic Disequilibrium in Centrally Planned Economies

The paper considers issues in recent research on macroeconomic equilibrium in centrally planned economies. I defend the explicit aggregative , macroeconomic approach in theory, institutional relationships and measurement. It has offered a fresh, coherent framework for analysis of many CPE phenomena, opened up a range of possibilities for empirical investigation, and generated several important spinoffs: work of planners' behavior, insights into CPE policy problems of the 1970s and early 1980s, which centred on macroeconomic equilibrium and threats to it; and some developments in market economy macro theory and econometrics. The quantity-rationing macro model and disequilibrium econometrics give a more useful as well as a more nuanced view of macroeconomic reality in CPEs than the conventional wisdom characterizing them as perpetual "shortage economies".