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Janos Kornai: a non-mainstream pathway from economic planning to disequilibrium economics

Author

Listed:
  • Wladimir Andreff

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

This paper first positions Janos Kornai in the controversies about the feasibility of socialist planning (Lange, Hayek). Kornai has leant in favor of Hayek's thesis contending that, without an actual market price system for conveying information to those who can beneficially use it, a socialist economy is impracticable. The paradox is that Kornai worked at the Computer Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in relation with the Planning Institute of the National Planning Office and conceived an algorithm for decentralized two-level planning, i.e., the best improvement ever brought into Lange's model of market socialism. This is due to Kornai being also involved in actual dysfunctions of central planning in Hungary (shortages) that he eventually theorized with disequilibrium modelling in his Economics of shortage. However, the latter departs from standard disequilibrium economics (Barro–Grossman) which has been joined by most former planometricians (such as Malinvaud for instance). Eventually Kornai adopted a more institutional approach for his recommendations as regards post-communist transformation into a market economy with a Hayekian flavor, in particular his support to an organic development of a privately-owned sector within a gradualist process instead of mainstream-supported overnight privatisation. His recent analysis of capitalism as a surplus economy shows the continuity of his non-mainstream view of disequilibrium over five decades. All this makes Kornai an original front-running researcher and breaking-through analyst, though somewhat paradoxical, and a quasi-heterodox economist, one foot in and one foot out of the mainstream.

Suggested Citation

  • Wladimir Andreff, 2021. "Janos Kornai: a non-mainstream pathway from economic planning to disequilibrium economics," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-03206929, HAL.
  • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:hal-03206929
    DOI: 10.1007/s11127-020-00813-6
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    Cited by:

    1. Eric Magnin & Nikolay Nenovsky, 2024. "Soft monetary constraint and shortage in the European sovereign debt economy," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 37(1), pages 55-80, March.
    2. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2022. "In Janos Kornai’s memory," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 190(3), pages 265-271, March.

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