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La contrainte budgétaire lâche et la théorie économique
[Soft Budget Constraint and Economic Theory]

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Author Info
Vahabi, Mehrdad
Abstract

The budget constraint as a bookkeeping identity is a fundamental concept of standard microeconomics. Clower reinterpreted this concept as a rational planning postulate. The notion of soft budget constraint (SBC), formulated for the first time by Janos Kornai (1979) in the context of a socialist economy is a heresy according to standard microeconomics and Clower, since budget constraint is by definition hard. Nevertheless, this concept is now applied in the analysis of post-socialist transition, emerging and developing countries, as well as developed capitalist economies. During the last fifteen years, the universal feature of the SBC motivated a formalised representation of this phenomenon in the framework of asymmetrical information literature. Hence, the SBC is reduced to a time inconsistency problem, namely the lack of credible dynamic commitment by the principal. The SBC is thus incorporated in new microeconomics and loses its institutional specificity. On a theoretical level, this removal of institutional specificity impoverishes the concept of SBC and brings us to reconsider the premises on which the original theory has been founded and to question the theoretical contradictions and tensions in Kornai’s works, from its beginning, which impeded the emergence of a more coherent institutional theory of the SBC.

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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 17651.

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Date of creation: Sep 2003
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Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:17651

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Related research
Keywords: contrainte budgétaire (CB); contrainte budgétaire lâche (CBL); le Principe de Say; la loi de Walras; effet Kornai;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
P5 - Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems
P2 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Systems and Transition Economies
D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles

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  21. Raiser, Martin, 1994. "The no-exit economy: Soft budget constraints and the fate of economic reforms in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(12), pages 1851-1867, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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