Optimizing things in the USSR (2016)

The Soviet centrally planned economy allocated resources by setting annual output targets and using manually calculated balance sheets, but the sheer number of commodities forced administrators to simplify models through variable removal, aggregation, and limited adjustment propagation. These shortcuts caused hidden shortages, mismatched product specifications—such as chronic thin-tube deficits—and factory idle time, illustrating the inefficiencies of large-scale manual planning.