Renesance české ekonomie
Renaissance of the Czech economics

The Prague Spring and the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences

Summary/Abstract: The authors offer a picture of the 1960s (and partly also the 1970s) as a period heading for a renaissance of rational economic thinking in the Czech Lands, pointing at certain links to economic discussions of the 1990s. The work is a specialized study on the history of economic thinking, but its character is partly that of remembranceas well. It focuses on two outstanding representatives of the Institute of Economics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960s, Ota Šik (1919–2004) and Josef Goldmann (1912–1984), and their research teams. As to collaborators of the Institute’s director (and Deputy Prime minister in 1968) Ota Šik, who were officially tasked with the preparation of economic reforms at that time, the authors mention contributions of Karel Kouba, Čestmír Kožušník, Bohumil Komenda and Otakar Turek. In 1965, Josef Goldmann established a department of prosperity and economic growth research, which was staffed by many young economists, including the authors of the present study. The latter present an analysis of three directions of Goldmann’s research: a theory of medium-term fluctuations in the growth rate of central planning economic systems; strategy of economic growth; and research of prosperity. They also describe the influence of the theoretical models of socialist economic systems of Włodzimierz Brus (1921–2007) on Šik’s team, and that of another Polish economist, Michał Kalecki (1899–1970), on Goldmann’s thinking. As to macroeconomic issues, the study deals with a period theoretical contribution of Václav Klaus (on inflation in centrally planned economies), while microeconomics is represented by works of Lubomír Mlčoch (in particular his study on the theory of the firm). The study also documents a significant generation dimension of the transformation of economic thinking in Czechoslovakia during the 1960s. In the end, the authors formulate a legacy of the Prague Spring in 1968 in the area of economic thinking. Fifty years ago, the Czechoslovak economics tried to overcome the simplified ideological notion of the centrally planned economy, to better understand the behavior of economic entities, and to use the knowledge to draft an economic reform. Today, we have not yet come to terms with the shiftfrom the principle (ideology) of a “market without attributes” and with the critic alanalysis of the real operation of the public sector within today’s economy, with a high level of redistribution which is often a long way from market principles. Just like in 1968, the gist of the matter is to better understand the “games” played by various economic subjects and institutions, and hence potential dysfunctions of the entire socio-economic system.

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