T HE upheavals in Eastern Europe make it more than usually timely to examine some aspects of the postwar economic development of this area. This discussion is devoted to the mechanism of trade among the Eastern European countries and will attempt to give some evaluation of its efficiency. Section I provides some background on developments in the area since I945; section II discusses data on the volume and pattern of trade and on currentaccount balances; section III describes how the volume, composition, direction, and terms of trade are determined by the state planners; and section IV evaluates the efficiency of the system as presently operated.

Nicolas Spulber, Kamran Moayed Dadkhah, The Pioneering Stage in Input-Output Economics: The Soviet National Economic Balance 1923-24, After Fifty Years, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Feb., 1975), pp. 27-34