Gary Krueger

Building research skills in the Macalester economics major

ABSTRACT Economics majors at Macalester College have won numerous awards for their research papers, and this success has helped them land jobs in finance, consulting, and the nonprofit sector, as well as gain admission to top graduate programs. This article describes how the Economics Department at Macalester promotes economic research among its students.

Aggregation in planning

Abstract 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.