AGGREGATION IN PLANNING

How planned is the centrally planned economy of the Soviet Union? The answer to this question depends primarily upon the degree to which plans are aggregated. This paper develops a framework for the empirical analysis of planned aggregation and applies it to the Soviet Union. Two sources of data are used to examine plan aggregation, the Soviet national (All-Union) plan and a collection of enterprise assortment plans. The estimates of plan aggregation correspond closely to the stylized facts of Soviet priorities, heavy industry versus light industry and food processing. © 1991.