This is an important, pioneering work. In it a group of leading experts on socialist economies (mostly American) look harder than anyone has previously done, and in an orderly way, at how inflation, price changes, recession, energy difficulties and other upsetting activities in the world economy have affected the supposedly more sheltered planned economies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Some answers are clear, some open to argument, and several fairly surprising. This successful venture should stimulate a good deal more work.