ECONOMIC PLANNING AND THE COST OF THINKING,

Abstract

The organizational economics of planning is concerned with the question: how to use fiven resources to obtain and process information in order to determine and carry out optimal strategies. The 'coarsening' or, more fenerally, 'garbling' of information never adds to its 'gross value'. Therefore, division of tasks among decision makers (between decentralized branches, or between commander andsubordinate, for example) would carry no advantage it it were not for the cost (not necessarily additive, and possibly infinite) of making decisions and communications by a given 'brain'. If we regard market economy, centralized economy, or any intermediate social forms as several methods of processing information into decisions and compare their abilities to reach a 'Pareto optimum' the respective organizational costs must be taken into account. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 01, 1966
Accession Number
AD0634448

Entities

People

  • Jacob Marschak

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Additives (Chemicals)
  • Commerce
  • Economic Systems
  • Economics
  • Market Economy
  • Markets
  • Social Sciences
  • Thinking

Readers

  • Economics
  • Systems Analysis and Design
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.