Is economic planning viable? 

Planning, both short and long-term, is an essential part of modern economic management. In order to delve into the arguments concerning their utility and usefulness, it’s prudent to briefly deliberate over its antecedents, which can be traced to the writers of Lausanne School of Economics, especially Leon Walras. He is considered one of the pioneers of applying math to economic theory (the other being Antoine Augustine Cournot). In short, he wrote down a complex series of mathematical equations which, he thought, would result in an ideal economic equilibrium. An important implication of his equilibrium model was that one could derive optimal level of prices that could serve as a guide to pricing final products, and that the use of these prices would be welfare maximizing.