The three major themes of János Kornai's work reflected in the title of this book--planning, shortage, and transition, or transformation--figure prominently in the essays. After a philosophical introduction by Edmond Malinvaud, the book is divided into three sections: Markets and Organizations,...

Eric S. Maskin delivered his Prize Lecture on 8 December 2007 at Aula Magna, Stockholm University. He was introduced by Professor Jorgen Weibull, Chairman of the Economics Prize Committee.

Consider an economy subject to two kinds of shocks: (a) an observable shock to the relative demand for final goods which causes dispersion in relative prices, and (b) shocks, unobservable by workers, to the technology for transforming intermediate goods into final goods. A worker in a particular...