search query: @indexterm ECONOMICS / total: 4580
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| Author: | Zweynert, J. |
| Title: | Economic ideas and institutional change: Evidence from Soviet economic debates 1987-1991 |
| Journal: | Europe-Asia Studies
2006 : MAR, VOL. 58:2, p. 169-192 |
| Index terms: | economics change history Soviet bloc Russia |
| Language: | eng |
| Abstract: | This article analyses the shift in ideas that took place in Soviet (hereafter as: S.) economic thought (here as: S-e-t.) from 1987 to 1991 with its relation to the real economy's changes, mainly focusing on the issue of whether the evolution of S-e-t. changed in a gradual, path-dependent (as: p-dep.) manner, or in a discontinuous, revolutionary fashion. It is argued that the conviction of being on the road to the 'wholesome society' formed the hard core of S. ideology, while 'democratic centralism' and the centralized economy provided its protective belt (as: p-belt). Perestroika was the last attempt to save the hard core of S. ideology by adjusting the p-belt. After this failed attempt, there was certainly a paradigm shift in S-e-t. The utopian liberalism fashionable among Russian economists for a short period of time, it is argued, provides evidence that paradigm shifts and p-dep. in the evolution of economic ideas are not mutually exclusive. |
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