Perestroika was acclaimed in the west but brought empty shelves in the east. Why Perestroika Failed argues that this was inevitable because it was not based on a sound understanding of market and political processes. Even if the perestroika programme had been carried out to the full it would have failed to bring about the structural changes necessary to transform what was the Soviet economy.

This work explores the founding, failure and attempts to reform and transform socialism in the 20th century, with a focus on the Soviet experience. It combines the strengths of the Austrian market process tradition with the political economy of public choice to provide an analytical framework for theoretical and historical examination of socialist practice and post-socialist political economy. Peter J. Boettke places particular emphasis on the difficulties of economic calculation in the absence of secure private property rights and the importance of establishing a credible commitment to...

This collection of essays from one of the major Austrian economists working in the world today brings together in one place some of his key writings on a variety of economic issues.

This third volume in the series is divided into four parts. The first presents a symposium on models of socialism, the second present current research, the third, review essays, and the fourth, book reviews.

by Yuri N. Maltsev formerly of the Institute of Economics, Academy of Sciences of the USSR The following study on the history of Soviet economic thought during the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is much more than the regular academic scribble on this turbulent period of modem history. It is a systematic treatise on economic theory. Interdisciplinary in nature, it discusses the central problems of political economy and provides the serious reader with deep insight and complete understanding of the greatest event of the twentieth century: the rise and fall of communism. The...

Conventional wisdom has it that government management of the economy is the means to transform a backward economy into a dynamic, modern one. Yet, after decades of international aid programs, development planning is today largely perceived as a failure paralyzed by its own bureaucracy and inefficiency. Despite billions of dollars of investment, development successes are few and far between and waste and mismanagement abounds.

This book showcases a diverse range of development experiences in order to ascertain the reasons for this quagmire. Case studies of development planning in...

Conventional wisdom has it that government management of the economy is the means to transform a backward economy into a dynamic, modern one. Yet, after decades of international aid programs, development planning is today largely perceived as a failure paralyzed by its own bureaucracy and inefficiency. Despite billions of dollars of investment, development successes are few and far between and waste and mismanagement abounds.

This book showcases a diverse range of development experiences in order to ascertain the reasons for this quagmire. Case studies of development planning in...

This volume presents a systematic analysis of the Bloomington Institutional and Development (IAD) Research Program that developed a unique and extremely successful combination of interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical approaches for the study of social sciences.

by Yuri N. Maltsev formerly of the Institute of Economics, Academy of Sciences of the USSR The following study on the history of Soviet economic thought during the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 is much more than the regular academic scribble on this turbulent period of modem history. It is a systematic treatise on economic theory. Interdisciplinary in nature, it discusses the central problems of political economy and provides the serious reader with deep insight and complete understanding of the greatest event of the twentieth century: the rise and fall of communism. The...