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Kornai: Shortage versus Surplus Economies

Author

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  • D. Mario Nuti

    (Faculty of Economics, Sapienza University of Rome)

Abstract

The economics of institutions and comparative systems owes an enormous debt to János Kornai. This was well exemplified by Kornai (2014a), offering a synthetic characterization of socialism and capitalism, respectively, as shortage and surplus economies. I was very fortunate, over the last fifty years, to have had many opportunities to meet him and to talk to him, and to discuss these issues directly with him. János can be very persuasive, and over the years I have somewhat converged towards his views, but in this essay, I am going to rehearse one residual major disagreement on the shortage economy, and three reservations on capitalism as the surplus economy which, after discovering from talking to him that he was in basic sympathy with them, I have downgraded to qualifications.

Suggested Citation

  • D. Mario Nuti, 2018. "Kornai: Shortage versus Surplus Economies," Acta Oeconomica, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 68(supplemen), pages 85-98, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aka:aoecon:v:68:y:2018:i:supplement1:p:85-98
    Note: An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Conference on “Institutions that change the World”, organized by World Interdisciplinary Network for Institutional Research (WINIR ), Greenwich, London, September 14, 2014. I thank János Kornai, Stanislaw Gomulka, Milica Uvalic and Péter Mihályi for their helpful comments on the earlier draft, and János also for access to unpublished work of his. Of course, I take sole responsibility for any errors or omissions.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Grala Dariusz T., 2020. "The Agricultural Reform of 1981 and the Competition for Resources Between Peasant Farms and State-Owned Farms in the 1980s," Studia Historiae Oeconomicae, Sciendo, vol. 38(1), pages 100-129, December.
    2. Emilio Carnevali & André Pedersen Ystehede, 2023. "Is socialism back? A review of contemporary economic literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 239-270, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    socialism; shortages; capitalism; surplus; post-socialist transition; soft budget constraints; inflation; innovation; democracy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights
    • P1 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies
    • P2 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies
    • P3 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions
    • P5 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems

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