Knowledge that Transforms

A S the pages of this journal testify,' economists recently have displayed a lively interest in the trend of industrial concentration. Those fearful of increased concentration in years to come are likely to be particularly concerned over the implications of continued heavy defense outlays. Although the evidence is far from convincing, many believe that the World War II mobilization program intensified industrial concentration. The issue examined in this article is whether a particular mobilization measure, accelerated tax amortization, has contributed toward increased concentration in American manufacturing industries during the current defense build-up.

IN the postwar discussions of the dollar problem, a number of writers have pointed to differences in national rates of productivity growth as one of the factors which has contributed to the imbalance in the world economy. It is the purpose of the present paper to study the validity of this argument. Clearly, such a study cannot be undertaken without including some consideration of relative movements of money wages. To use a shorthand expression, a country's competitive position in the world economy is, with given exchange rates, determined by the ratio between its productivity and its money wage rates. Consequently, both of these factors must be dealt with explicitly. The discussion of money wages will be undertaken from two points of view. In the first place, we shall analyze different norms for monetary and wage policies under conditions of divergent rates of productivity growth. Secondly, we shall discuss briefly whether the postwar commitments to a full employment policy in a number of countries have introduced a new element into the situation.

QTATE per capita incomes are computed by dividing estimated income payments to the residents of a state by the state's total population at midyear.1 This computation implicitly assumes that the denominator, total population, does not vary from one state to another in any important way. Yet it is known that states vary with respect to family size and composition, birth and death rates, participation in the labor force, and a host of other demographic attributes. It is the purpose of this paper to investigate the extent to which state differences in two of these attributes age composition and participation in the labor force -help to explain differences in state per capita incomes. Attention is confined largely to describing the direct effects on the distribution of per capita incomes among states of using alternative denominators that take account of variations in age composition and labor force participation. The study is confined to the three years, I930, I940, and I950 for which both Census data and official state income payment estimates are available.