Textbook on economic structure and the performance of planned economy in the USSR - reviews the evolution of the Soviet economic system and economic administration; covers industrialization, trade development, economic integration and CMEA, resource allocation, economic policies, growth rate trends, etc.; and includes historical background. Bibliography, diagrams, statistical tables.

An analytical framework for explaining the ways in which institutions and institutional change affect the performance of economies is developed in this analysis of economic structures.

In this bold, sweeping study of the development of Western economies, Douglass C. North sets forth a new view of societal change.