Table of contents : Cover Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Another “Grand Illusion”— Optimizing the Central Plan Chapter 1 To Command or to Understand? Planning Concepts and Economic Research in Communist Bulgaria Chapter 2 Quantitative Economics in China From Planned Economy to Socialist Market Economy Chapter 3 Mathematical Economics and Central Planning Economic Research in Czechoslovakia under Communism Chapter 4 Theory and Political Economy of Central Planning in East Germany Chapter 5 Mathematical Economics Outside the Neoclassical Paradigm? Evolution of Planning Concepts in Hungary under Communism Chapter 6 Between Rationality and Reality Economics and Central Planning in Poland (1945–1989) Chapter 7 The Failure of Communist Planning A Perspective from Romania Chapter 8 Communism = Soviet Power + Planning Planning and Mathematical Economics in the Soviet Union Chapter 9 Mathematical Economics, Economic Modeling, and Planning in Yugoslavia Conclusion Rationality Found and Lost? In Search of a New Historical Narrative of Optimal Planning Index About the Editor and Contributors