Journal Article Capital Levies in Western Europe After the Second World War Get access P. Robson P. Robson Belfast Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 27, Issue 1, October 1959, Pages 23–43, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296048 Published: 01 October 1959

<qd> Nothing requires a rarer intellectual heroism than willingness to see one's equation written out. — Santayana </qd>

Introduction, 33. I. Underutilized resources and directed demand, 634; simple capital goods, 636; handicraft production, 639; primary production, 640; other areas, 641. — II. Finances, 642.

PROFESSOR SAMUELSON's path-breaking article on Interaction Between Multiplier Analysis and Principle of Acceleration appeared in this REVIEW almost twenty years ago. A large literature has developed in which basic ideas of that article have been applied to both business cycle and economic growth problems. In a considerable portion of that literature, Samuelson's warning that the representation is strictly a marginal analysis to be applied to study of small oscillations has been overlooked.' Samuelson's warning can be interpreted as meaning that time series generated by any particular solution of model will determine actual income for only a short time. Given mathematical model, relevant particular solution can change due either to (i) accelerator or multiplier coefficients changing (as Samuelson suggests), or (2) imposition of new initial conditions. Goodwin2 has examined various models in which accelerator coefficient is a variable. These non-linear models are mathematically complex, and specific limit cycles that Goodwin derives obviously are due to special assumptions he makes about how path of income affects accelerator coefficient. Hicks 3 has investigated how an otherwise explosive accelerator model will be affected by floors and ceilings. In this paper such floors and ceilings will be interpreted as imposing new initial conditions, and therefore this paper can be considered a reinterpretation of Hicks's setup.4 We will work with a slightly modified version of Samuelson's model, and assume that

DETWEEN I947 and I957 the price of )manufactured goods, other than foods, rose 33 per cent. The price of constituent crude materials rose 20 per cent. (Their spot market prices fell io per cent.) Production workers' payrolls per unit of output rose I7.5 per cent. The growing gap between these costs and selling prices was partly filled by certain fringe benefits of production workers, by depreciation accruals, and by taxes. A further substantial portion of the margin over direct costs is attributable to the work performed by non-production workers in manufacturing whose number rose 55 per cent while the number of production workers increased only 2 per cent. Payments to non-production workers were a major factor in causing the compensation of all workers in manufacturing to increase almost twice as fast as payrolls for production workers alone. The rise in prices over the decade has been blamed on a demand-pull or a cost-push, or both. Rising costs of the articles currently purchased push against operating margins and presently against prices. In this sense, union demands for higher wages or suppliers' demands for a higher price of materials constitute a direct rise in costs that tends to push prices up. But the figures just cited indicate that costs have risen in other ways also. Manufacturers have added hundreds of thousands of workers engaged in marketing, advertising, administration, research. They have bought vast quantities of new machines for which depreciation must be charged as a current cost. Had they not changed their input in these and other ways, production labor per unit of output would have risen more than it did. Indeed, if each decision to alter. the character and quantities of input had been a perfect textbook example of economic behavior, the total cost-push would presumably have been minimized by the shifts in inputs. But insofar as this has not actually been the case -insofar as the shifts have been inefficient with respect to minimizing costs or maximizing contemporary consumer satisfaction the rapid rise in the cost of non-production labor and equipment could bear directly on the inflationary process. In the closing section of this paper I shall argue that there are strong reasons to suspect that this has actually been the case. If so, the matter has not been accorded the attention it deserves. For the figures indicate a potential quantitative importance of substantial scope. It is this potential quantitative importancethe extent of the shifts in cost structure-which is examined in the following pages. First we review recent trends in the unit cost of production labor and next in prices of crude materials. The data are examined over the postwar decade ending with the business peak in I957.1 The third section shows how trends in these major direct costs are associated with shifts of very considerable proportions in the rest of the cost structure of manufacturing. The final section speculates on the probable bearing of these shifts on the inflationary process, and points to questions that require answers.

FOR all the interest that attaches to constant-price (physical-volume) estimates of output, it remains uncomfortably true that the outputs of some sectors are effectively unmeasurable in constant prices, at least by direct means. While this difficulty can arise from several sources, it commonly arises under either of two circumstances: where the total number of to be covered is very large, or where produced in any given year have no exact counterparts in the base year, i.e., where the products problem is unmanageably large. The conventional recourse under these circumstances is to some indirect measure of outputs, and usually to an index derived in one way or another from input data. Construction is manifestly an industry in which both of these difficulties are severe. It is a custom industry, in which single are frequently unique, and in which, even for otherwise identical products, differences in site may produce differences in costs and in services yielded. In the face of these difficulties, constant-price estimates of United States construction have been derived from input rather than output data: Simon Kuznets' estimates for decade averages, I869-I9I3, are based on materials inputs; ' his annual estimates for I 9I3-43, and the Department of Commerce annual estimates, are both essentially, though with minor qualifications, current values of outputs deflated by indexes of prices of inputs.2 The purpose of this note is to report the results of an effort to compose a constant-price index of Soviet construction.3 The substitute for a true output index employed here is the same as that used by Kuznets for the earlier period, a materials-input index. The results of the study are shown in Table i. So far as the available data and some rather incautious estimating procedures permit, this is an index of materials actually consumed in Soviet construction, not of domestic output or total consumption of construction materials conventionally defined. It is intended to include materials absorbed in gross new construction of all kinds, whether completed or in progress, no matter by whom performed or financed, and in the entire de facto territory of the U.S.S.R. as of each date. It is composed from quantity series for 59 kinds or grades of materials, some of which, however, are included for a few years only while others for some years are estimated in combination.4 It is weighted by I937 ruble prices for state industries, at wholesale. The years I92 7/28, I928/29, and I929/30 are fiscal years, beginning on October i. The war years are omitted for lack of quantity data; I94I Plan is included because of the abundance of quantity data available for that year.

Journal Article Some Notes on Stability Conditions Get access P. K. Newman P. K. Newman Kingston, Jamaica Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 27, Issue 1, October 1959, Pages 1–9, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296045 Published: 01 October 1959

Abstract This article focuses on the relationship between accounting and economics. There are at least two, perhaps three, main areas of economic theory. One is microeconomic theory, in which the unit of analysis is relatively small, the central problem is the allocation of scarce resources among alternative uses, and the principal variables are quantities and prices of factors of production and finished products. The second area is macroeconomic theory in which the unit of analysis relatively large, the central problem is the level of employment of resources, and the principal variables are employment, national income, money, interest, and aggregate consumption, savings, and investment. The usefulness of economic theory is not limited to its applied aspects in social accounting. Such theory obviously has a substantial import apart from social accounting. Accounting for monetary phenomena sometimes takes the form of accounting for flows, sometimes of accounting for stocks. Irving Fisher's theory stressed the matching of money flows against the transactions of real goods and services. Keynes' monetary theory stressed the liquidity preferences of holders of money balances.

Abstract The thesis of this paper is that research is one of the primary responsibilities of university faculties and is an integral part of developing scholars and teachers. Yet no matter how vigorously all concerned may agree with this, research is often placed low in the order of priority. Still, in final analysis, published research plays a vital part in the lives of many university teachers. Despite the abuses which are sometimes committed in the name of research, and the odds and ends which masquerade under the name, published research is one tangible factor which can be appraised by many and is commonly given important recognition. Perhaps the most important general consideration is that a faculty member has an obligation to enrich, to the best of his ability the literature of his field. In return, his contribution cannot help but assist in his own development as an individual and as a scholar.