On the Russian School of Forecasting and the Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical Progress

The paper features the evolution of the Russian school of economic forecasting and the contributions of academicians N.P. Fedorenko, A.I. Anchishkin, S.S. Shatalin and Yu.V. Yariomenko and other prominent economists as its founding fathers. The author also describes the elaboration of the Comprehensive Program for Scientific and Technical Progress. the most extensive and large scale project initiated by the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1970s. was developed. Furthermore, the author offers an analysis of the economic-mathematical apparatus employed for the Program. He also highlights the challenges the Program has encountered and the goals it has achieved. Falzman reveals what it took for a group of upfront economists to emphasize the need to estimate the latent inflation related to the investment ruble and to advocate the idea of making adjustments to the overestimated official growth rates of the Soviet economy. Finally, he evaluates the role of the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute in fostering the talent pool for implementing subsequent economic reforms.