An Optimal Approach in Long-range Planning

Abstract

In my view the period of long-run planning should be restricted to fifteen to twenty years and that of long-run forecasting to twenty to thirty years. We need to look into such a far-off future for well-grounded decisions for the most important and fundamental problems of scientific-technological and socio-economic development. It usually takes ten years to develop and test in their essentials new systems of technique (e.g. supersonic civil aviation); serial production and introduction require another five years. Besides there exists the necessity to try out the consequences of using this new technique at least in its most general form, and thus the time-horizon to consider the problem should be extended by five to ten years more.