ABSTRACT
The image of the Leonid Brezhnev era as a 'time of stagnation', which came to dominate Soviet and western perceptions of the period in the late 1980s, was all rooted in the Brezhnev leadership's failure to deliver satisfactory economic performance. Strategic parity with the United States and the projection of Soviet power to such far-flung corners of the globe as Angola came at a high economic price. The Soviet economic system was best at delivering a small number of largescale, customised projects and/or a large number of highly standardised systems. The incentive structure facing managers, workers and economic administrators at every level continued to privilege quantitative targets over efficiency, quality or future value. The planning process created incentives at all levels for agents to conceal their true capabilities and exaggerate their resource requirements, while the price system meant that financial data provided no meaningful information about economic performance.
