Reviews the book "Trade Balances during Business Cycles," by Ilse Mintz.

Journal Article On the Stability of the Cournot Solution on the Oligopoly Problem Get access R. D. Theocharis R. D. Theocharis Cyprus Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 27, Issue 2, February 1960, Pages 133–134, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296135 Published: 01 February 1960

Journal Article Alternative Profit Criteria Get access D. M. Lamberton D. M. Lamberton Nuffield College, Oxford Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 74, Issue 4, November 1960, Pages 635–640, https://doi.org/10.2307/1884358 Published: 01 November 1960

I. Introduction, 167. — II. The prewar wage and price trends, 172. — III. The wage inflation of the thirties, 175. — IV. Wartime inflation, 181. — V. Postwar deflation, 183. — VI. Concluding remarks, 188.

D. S. Bridgman, Problems in Estimating the Monetary Value of College Education, The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 42, No. 3, Part 2. Higher Education in the United States: The Economic Problems (Aug., 1960), pp. 180-184

M UCH attention has been devoted in recent decades to the statistical evidence relating to share in the national income of the United States. It is generally agreed that this evidence, though inadequate for the earlier years, clearly establishes that the share of wages and salaries in United States national income has been significantly higher since World War I than in the nineteenth century. Some economists have concluded that the share of wages and salaries continues to be characterized by an upward trend. In some studies this upward trend is viewed as evidence that labor unions have succeeded in obtaining a larger share of the pie for their members. Others have concluded that wages and salaries have tended to constitute a stable proportion of national income in recent decades, after allowing for cyclical fluctuations. The significance of the results obtained in such studies cannot be determined without consideration of the changing structure of the economy. The growth of corporate organizations and the displacement of individual proprietorships and partnerships have entailed the conversion of large numbers of self-employed persons to wage and salary workers; not only has the proportion of employees in the labor force been raised, but also many of those added to this category have been relatively highsalaried corporate officers, managers, research and similar personnel.' This process is a continuing one. In addition, the growth of public institutions at a more rapid pace than the private sector of the economy has had an important influence on the share of employee compensation in national income.Furthermore, a considerable part of the wage and salary payments made by government has gone in the last two decades to persons outside the civilian labor force, i.e., to military personnel. These and other changes in the structure of the economy call into question the contention that labor's share of national income is best measured . . . by the ratio of Employee Compensation to National Income, 3 as well as many of the conclusions that have been reached by studying these ratios. The main purpose of the present study is to take account of some of the more important changes in the structure of the American economy, as they bear upon the share of employee compensation, by comparing this share with the percentage of employees in the labor force.4 To

T HE main proposition of this paper is that the tremendous long-run upward tide of wages has created an illusion of rigidity by drowning out wage variations that are not only wider than most related phenomena, but are also sensitive to short and long cycles in the general economy. Almost three-fourths of that wage trend has been justified by productivity advances. Slightly over one-fourth of it has been associated with price inflation and is therefore open to the suspicion that the wage trend may have been the prime mover in a wage-price spiral and an integral part of the problem of wage rigidity. Any attempt to convict wages of such responsibility, however, must explain why year-to-year percentage changes in wages rarely led the expansion of business, prices, employment, and productivity and why those in unit labor costs have normally lagged such expansions. Few notions about wages are more widely and firmly held than the belief in their comparative unresponsiveness to economic downturns. The literature abounds with statements like the following: Moderate changes in employment are not associated with very great changes in money wages.' Money-wage levels, like individual wage-rates, are rather insensitive to cyclical forces and decline only in response to major depressions.2 Changes in British and American factory wages during I9 I9-39 lagged behind business activity by substantial numbers of months, and their fluctuations were smaller in amplitude than those of production, employment, and wholesale prices of raw and semi-finished goods.3 The level of wages in prewar Britain was fairly constant in the face of wide employment fluctuations.4 German wage rates have failed to show genuine cycles and have reacted only to major depressions and then with a lag.5 Little decline in Swedish wages could be found in depressions between I887 and I930.6 When there is a considerable increase in unemployment . . . do wages drop as they would in a competitive market? History answers, No.7 There has been no lack of explanation for this apparent wage rigidity in contractions. The most usual has been union resistance, but other explanations have included statutory wage minimums; insistence of the unorganized worker on maintaining his living standards; 8 reluctance of employers to invite popular disapproval, provoke unionization, or risk loss of valuable employees; 9 time required to ascertain that a recession is on; and finally the bureaucratic wage policies of big firms and unions, which can be altered only at substantial cost and difficulty.10 Opinion has been less unanimous concerning wage behavior in expansion. Some believe that wages initiate and aggravate inflation-at least under the recent drive of mass unionism.11 But

Reviews the book "Federal Income Taxation," 1st ed., by Robert S. Holzman.