ABSTRACT
The primarily redistributional role of planning, the multiple pricing practices that have emerged, and the increasing importance of the market mechanism and profit motive have some interesting implications. Planning in an economic system like that of the USSR is not geared toward promoting redistributional goals, which are furthered by other instruments like wage controls, nationalization of assets, taxes on luxury goods, and so on. Though multilevel production planning and allocation control did not change the administrative character of industrial management in prereform China, they did loosen the system somewhat from central control. Managerial attitudes toward the importance of plan fulfillment have changed during the period of reforms. Production planning in China has been slack and loose, as opposed to taut and firm in the traditional model of central planning. The role of the market mechanism in resource allocation can be magnified beyond its share in total production and supply, under certain conditions.
