Theory and practice of CMEA cooperation by S. AuschActa Oeconomica, Vol. 10, No. 3/4 (1973), pp. 436-437Published by: Akadémiai KiadóStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40728290 .

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436 BOOK REVIEWS

established which provides incentives to and helps the enterprises in their techno- logical development activities; - increased incentives must be provided to improve efficiency of foreign trade through transforming its pattern and to expand cooperation among the socialist countries; - a way must be found for regrouping capital among enterprises; - endeavours must be made that the system of regulators should be compara- tively stable which does not exclude changes in the measures applied more frequently depending on need; - in addition to maintaining its uniform nature, the system of regulators must in- creasingly take into consideration the special features of the different branches.

The problems and concepts regarding their solutions appear in twelve chapters, each written by the most competent ex- perts in the field in question and each an independent study in its own right.

1. Price system and its development (P. Vallus and L. Bácz)

2. Enterprise income regulations (S. F erge and L. Antal)

3. Wage regulation and manpower management (I. Buda)

4. Regulators in foreign trade (S. Czeüler)

5. World market prices and domestic prices (L. Rácz and /. Vincze)

6. Regulations concerning private con- sumption (Mrs. J. Keserü)

7. Regulation of economic growth (I. Ber end, I. Danes and L. Szabó)

8. Management and crediting of work- ing assets (M. Pulai)

9. Regulation of product turnover (P. Vallus)

10. Technical development and econom- ic regulators (J. Sebestyén and E. Far- kasfalvi)

11. Special regulators in food economy (K. Kazareczki)

12. Economic activity of local councils: its development and regulation (L. Falu- végi and L. Papp)

The Appendix containing the explana- tions of special terms is very useful for the reader from abroad.

This volume completes the information given by the antecedent one "Reform of economic mechanism" (edited by I. Friss in cooperation with O. Gado), brings up to date the knowledge of the reader on achievements and problems of the Hungar- ian economic reform.

S. Balázsy

Ausch, S.: Theory and practice of CMEA cooperation. Budapest, 1972. Akadémiai Kiadó. 270 p.

This work is an English language edi- tion of the Hungarian volume by the well known author, published in 1969, and re- viewed in Vol. 4. No. 4. 1969 of Acta Oeconomica. The book, hardly changed in comparison to its Hungarian original, was then evaluated by the author of the review, Professor Tamas Nagy, as an outstanding work even by international standards. The author discovered general laws in CMEA cooperation, and formulated its special economics which will be valid as long as a directive system of planning exists within the member countries. The author points out the difficulties stemming from the situation and shows the possibilities which would exist if the individual coun- tries were to change to a planning system allowing market conditions to operate better.

Based on extensive theoretical, his- • torical and statistical analyses, the author examines the forms, methods and contents of the economic cooperation between CMEA countries. Besides revealing the actual situation and the results attained, he also outlines the condition under which cooperation could be made more efficient.

Attention is primarily given to the methods applied by the individual member countries to control their planned econ- omies, since the author believes that the objective- laws and also the limits of

Ada OecoTtomica 10, 1973

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BOOK REVIEWS 437

their cooperation are mainly determined by the particular features of the compul- sory directives issued centrally for the var- ious units of economy. While analysing the interrelationships existing between these, the author makes an attempt at outlining a special economics for CMEA cooperation.

The theses presented in the book have found subsequent justification in the course of the recent negotiations on eco- nomic integration between CMEA coun- tries.

The content of the work, which has stood the test of time from all points of view has been verified by the facts of cooperation. Nothing is detracted from its value by the fact that its statistical basis closed with the year 1968.

Jánossy, F.: The end of the economic miracle. (Appearance and reality in eco- nomic development.) White Plains, 1971. International Arts and Sciences Press. Inc., 269 p.

This book gives an analysis of economic miracles only in the second place; the ex- planation of the great economic booms experienced all over the world following the Second World War is almost but an illustration to the second part of the book: to the growth theory of Jánossy.

The economic miracles can be explained according to the author by a new inter- pretation of the reconstruction periods. According to this, the reconstruction pe- riods after the war did not end when pro- duction had reached to the level of the last year before the war, but only when it reached the level that could have been attained by the given moment, had there been no war. This assumes the existence of some "ideal" economic development course, from the point of view of which war (and similarly: economic crisis) can be regarded as a "disturbance". The "ideal" course is described by the trend- line of economic development. This trend - line, however, should not be drawn in

the way generally used in statistics, i.e. as some average growth diagram, but as a line connecting the maximum points of the production curve. The reconstruction periods end when the actual production curve joins the trend-line. In the final analysis it is the slope of the trend-line which determines when and with what decrease of the previous rapid growth rate this period will end in a given country. The "economic miracles" were such re- construction periods, which ended at the moment of joining the trend-line, in this respect "economic miracles" are post-war development not only of some countries (GFR, Japan, Italy), but of every economy that was more or less seriously disturbed by the decline caused by the war.

The trend-line is, in general, a straight line drawn in logarithmic scale. (Jánossy analyzes mostly the development of such partial and aggregate indices - steel consumption, production of electrical energy and sulphuric acid, decrease in the proportion of the agricultural population, industrial production, which are increasing according to geometric series.) This straight line, however, may get broken and its direction may change for several reasons. Changes in the production relations - the socialist revolutions of our century - increase the slope of the trend-line. The extensive period of industrialization, when production increase is based mostly on the growth of employment, produces a steeper trend-line than the later so-called intensive phase, when the primary source of increase is rising the productivity of labour. Finally, the slope of the trend - line is increased by the new group of phenomena called "scientific- technological revolution" - e.g. the rapid spread of technological achievements as a conse- quence of increased economic integration - that is, a process which has developed all over the world after the Second World War. (This latter possibility of a change in the direction of the trend -line has not been mentioned in the English edition yet. For the French edition of the book,

11 Acta Oeconomica 10 .1973

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