Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/81186 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2007
Series/Report no.: 
IFN Working Paper No. 724
Publisher: 
Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN), Stockholm
Abstract: 
The publication of János Kornai’s memoirs, By Force of Thought, provides an excellent opportunity to remind ourselves of Kornai’s great contributions to economic research. This paper discusses both his basic research strategy and some of his main research results. Kornai has usually dealt with great, system-oriented issues, and he has been more inspired by real-world observations than by scholarly work by others. The paper also emphasizes that Kornai’s two most celebrated characterizations of real world socialist economies – shortage economies and production units with soft budget constraints – are analytically closely connected. Kornai also, in his more recent works, regards the centralized political system during communism as the basic explanation for the centralized nature of the economic system in these countries.
Subjects: 
Socialism
Soft Budget Constraints
Shortage Economy
Economic Centralization
JEL: 
B24
B31
L10
P20
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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