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There has been increased interest in consumer protection in recent years, particularly in the area of product safety. Deaths and injuries involving consumer products pose serious social and economic problems in the United States. It is estimated that approximately 20 million Americans are injured each year in the home as a result of accidents involving consumer products. These accidents result in 30,000 deaths; 110,000 persons are permanently disabled (National Commission on Product Safety). In response to public concern for product safety, the Consumer Product Safety Commission was established in 1973 and granted broad authority to issue and enforce safety standards over more than 10,000 products. The necessity for product safety regulations is based on several factors. First, the consumer may be uninformed of the underlying hazard and hence may not perceive the need for protection. Second, the consumer who elects to live dangerously may also be exposing others to the same risk, e.g., a cigarette smoker who involves others in a fire. The increased interdependence of consumption which characterizes a modem industrial society means that the "right to choose" and the "right to safety" sometimes conflict. Finally, part of the cost of accidents is incurred by the taxpayer rather than by the individual. In both the second and third instances, underevaluation of potential benefits by an individual consumer may result in a less than optimum level of safety for society as a whole. The failure of the marketplace, for the reasons mentioned above, means that corrective action is required. Such actions may include improving the performance of the marketplace, e.g., consumer information, or imposing safety regulations. The role of product safety regulations in protecting the consumer has been the subject of considerable discussion in recent years (Cornell, Noll, Weingast; Dickerson and Reed; Lowrance; Mishan; Oi; Weston). Questions have been raised concerning the cost effectiveness of safety regulations compared to other consumer protection programs such as consumer information, and the role of the consumer and producer in the consumer protection process. Weston (p. 160), while acknowledging the necessity for safety regulations, cautions that the "formulation of new standards should compare trade-offs between degrees of safety, alternative methods of ~chieving them, additional costs and their effect on consumer usage, and relate all of these to the potential benefits." One technique for estimating the gains and losses from consumer protection programs is cost-benefit analysis. This paper investigates the role of cost-benefit analysis in determining whether product safety regulations are in the public interest and applies such analysis to an evaluation of flammability standards for children's sleepwear, sizes 7-14.

Partial equilibrium analysis was employed to estimate the gain or loss accruing to the United States in adopting alternative methods of protection for raw wool. The cost estimates, which were calculated for 1963, indicated that the economy had gained from the adoption of a partial deficiency payments system in 1954. However, further gains could have been made if the raw wool and compensatory wool products tariffs had been replaced by increased deficiency payments. The cost to the economy of maintaining the present system of protection for raw wool ranged from $13 to $26 million, depending on the particular elasticity of demand used. The results demonstrate the necessity for considering interaction between intermediate and final goods in evaluating alternative methods of protection.

Markov analysis is employed to investigate the competitive potential of the U. S. cotton fiber industry. Cotton's market share is projected to decline in 17 of the top 20 end uses examined though at a slower rate than in the past. Non-cellulosic, the major competitor, is projected to capture more than 50 percent of the market in 13 end uses. The results indicate the necessity for concerted action by the cotton industry if it is to recapture or even retain its market share. The long time horizons of many end uses provide time for planning and implementing programs designed to improve cotton's competitive position.

rT | HE EXISTENCE of fixed coefficients of production raises certain problems in marginal productivity theory, notably the demand for factors of production. In such instances it may be neither meaningful nor possible to discuss the returns to factors of production in terms of their respective marginal productivities.1 The present note discusses the reconcilement between marginal productivity theory and fixed coefficients of production proposed by Georgescu-Roegen [3] in 1935 and extends the analysis to include cases of imperfect competition. The similarity between this model and the treatment of costs in marketing theory is also discussed. It is convenient at first to review the definition of limitational and substitutable factors given by Georgescu-Roegen [3]. Given a production function q=F(a, b), we can consider two points Mi(ai, b) and Mj(aj, b) such that ai>aj. If Fi(ai, b)>Fj(aj, b), then the factor b is called substitutable. If, however, there are certain points for which Fi(ai, b)=Fj(aj, b), then the factor b is called limitational. In this case the production process is described by the system: q=f(a) =g(b). The above analysis can be extended to the case where a and b represent groups of factors rather than single factors of production. In the case where the groups must be used in a certain fixed proportion and assuming two substitutable factors in each group, we have the following system of production