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The author presents comments on papers by economists Robert H. Rasche and Leonall Andersen. The author expresses criticism towards both Rasche and Andersen. One of the author's main concerns with the research is the focus of the FRB-MIT-Penn econometric model used to study the United States economy during the period of 1966-1970. It is suggested that too much attention is made to how the FRB-MIT-Penn econometric model behaved during the period, instead of accounting for other economic activities occurring during the period. The author expresses less criticism towards Andersen's research, but does note that there are several problems with it.

The author comments on the papers by economists Robert H. Rasche and Leonall Andersen. The aim of the author is to demonstrate why the research conducted by Rasche and Andersen presents an important professional event and the analytical problems this event raises. It is explained that the event the author references is the establishment of monetarism as "conventional wisdom." In Andersen's research he attests to the legitimacy of the monetarist succession by citing the now-familiar litany of impressive empirical research results achieved at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. Rasche's research demonstrates that the FRB-MIT-Penn Model has to incorporate what the author takes as being the critical structural element of monetarism.

The article comments on the papers "Selective Credit Controls" by economist Donald Hodgman and "Financial Guidelines and Credit Controls," by economist Thomas Mayer. In both economist's research they present arguments against credit controls. It is explained that the general consensus among most economist is that credit controls contribute little to monetary restraint and are inefficient and undesirable means of influencing the allocation of credit in the economy. Several reasons are given to why credit controls have gained popularity.

Presents an abstract of the report "Paper for Printing and Writing; Tentative Forecasts of Demand in 1955, 1960 and 1965," by the Intelligence Unit of the Economist. Presentation of the results in tables and descriptive texts for individual countries, regions, and continents; Rise expected in the total world demand for newsprint as well as other printing and writing paper; Significance of the absolute and relative variation in demand and in consumption between countries, regions, and continents.

Presents information related to several articles on economics. Career profile of economist Fleeming Jenkin; Capital goods, technology, and economics growth; Unbiased productivity growth and increasing costs; Economies of scale and the structure of the road haulage; Development of the Indian economy.

This article focuses on the beliefs and practices of Robert Torrens in the field of economics, particularly his views on monetary matters. In the paper of 1826, Torrens' thought was in an intermediate position between its early and final forms. He was still extremely clear about the dangers of convertibility. At the same time he already accepted the need to make the currency fluctuate in response to external pressures as a metallic currency would do, and to provide a better safeguard against over-issue than that provided by the real-bills doctrine. But he did not want a complete parallel between the fluctuations of the paper currency and those of a theoretical metallic one, hence his desire to link the paper to the modal value of gold. Moreover, he still felt that a currency plan should have safeguards against panics, and do more than merely avoid those fluctuations to which a less well-designed scheme of currency would be liable. The 1826 plan would have been an important link in the development of this powerful and original thinker even if it had been short lived. But there is a strong possibility that it stayed with him for some time. This scheme was certainly one to which Torrens devoted considerable care and thought, and it is an interesting link in the development of an important economist.

The article focuses on the publishing of economic papers and its impact on graduate faculty ratings. Three studies of the institutional affiliation of authors of economics papers appeared in the American Economic Review. Economist D.B. Fusfeld examined the origins of the participants in the program of the American Economic Association meetings over the five-year period 1950-54. He concluded that a disproportionately large number of papers came from the Big 15 schools. There was an almost complete absence of papers from the nation's liberal arts colleges, where the economist is more likely to have a broad approach to his subject instead of emphasizing the intense specialization characteristic of the large graduate schools. He observed that the methods of selecting speakers are inadequate, and recommended that the Association improve the method of organizing the annual meetings to broaden the participation base. A follow-up study by F.R. Cleary and D.J. Edwards reviewed the institutional affiliation of contributors to the American Economic Review for the decade 1950-59.

A conference paper is presented that looks at money demand and supply functions. Several theories about money supply are discussed including one in which it does not have any influence on national income or prices and another that allows for a link between national income, money, and prices. A particular aim of this paper is to generate a monetary theory that incorporates policy with consumer behavior and bank behavior.

Commercial bank portfolio models developed by Hester [6], Porter [11], and Kane and Malkiel [7], among others, relate the structure of an asset portfolio to variation in the level of deposits. Similarly, in a recent application of linear programming to asset management, Cohen and Hammer [3] specify a liquidity constraint based upon deposit fluctuations. However, there have been few empirical studies of the determinants of demand deposit fluctuations. The purpose of this paper is to extend the work of Gramley [4], Rangarajan [12], and Wilkerson [14] on the determinants of deposit variability. In this paper, the analysis will be confined to demand deposit variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents discussions by economists on some papers that were published in the May 1, 1970 issue of the journal "American Economic Review." The author states that it should come as no surprise to anyone to find that there are some basic problems remaining in industrial organization. What is surprising is the extent to which papers published in the present issue of the journal agree on the nature and causes of these problems. These papers argue that the basic concerns of economists are empirical and difficulties in studies arise both from inadequate data and from a theoretical apparatus that may not permit very clear predictions to be made about firm and industry behavior. While suggesting how one should proceed in his study of industrial organization, authors part company, but only to a degree. Economist E.T. Grether suggests that one must broaden ones sights and examine more closely internal factors in the organization and decision processes of the firm. This kind of extension, when combined with the traditional market-structure approach, may provide a theoretical basis sufficient to deal even with large and diversified companies.

The article reports on key issues relevant to the use of statistical techniques by middle management. A group of student economists taking the statistics course of the Executive Program of the University of Chicago during 1952, 1953, and 1954 were required by their professor, W. Allen Wallace, to turn in a term paper analyzing the effect communication patterns have upon the operation of groups. The author focuses on examining the information compiled from the term papers, including general problems that the students observed as well as inefficiencies generated in eight specific categories including business forecasting, predictive techniques, and scheduling and inventory control. Marketing techniques are called into question. Common mistakes made in the interpretation of data are also discussed.

The article discusses problems associated with economic growth at maximal rate. The main purpose of the present article is expository. Drawing where needed on the studies cited, the authors utilize a diagrammatic device that makes it possible to exhibit, in terms of a two-commodity world, the essentials of the model by economist John von Neumann and its maximal growth properties. It is reported that in 1936 von Neumann presented orally, for subsequent publication in an Austrian mathematical periodical little known to economists, a paper that has greatly influenced economic theory up to the present time, and of which all the ramifications have perhaps not yet become fully apparent. Paradoxically, von Neumann's paper shows that for a piece of work to spark several new developments in economic theory, it is not necessary that it have any particular claim to realism in its portrayal of economic life. Subsequent developments have fully vindicated the intuitions that led von Neumann to make these drastic and arbitrary-looking simplifications.

The article reports on war and inflation in Spain from 1780-1800. During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, wars or revolutions drove one country after another into paper-money inflation. Under the impact of torrential issues, weak governments and doubtful military prospects. Continental currency and the assignats lost practically all their value and gave way to bimetallic standards. With invasion by French legions momentarily expected, the Bank of England suspended specie payments in 1797 and although depreciation was never disastrous, resumption was not feasible until six years after Waterloo. In 1775 Count Campomanes, one of the ablest economists and greatest ministers in Spanish history, listed as a great national asset the freedom from paper-money inflation that other European countries had suffered. Only five years later war with England forced Spain to issue and over issue paper currency. Appeals to patriotism, intervention in the bullion market, strict prohibition and a host of fiscal measures failed to prevent severe depreciation.

This article presents comments from several economists on Christopher Sims' article about the statistical analysis of labor input and output in manufacturing in the U.S. Michael C. Lovell: Christopher Sims presents a fresh analysis of a much studied phenomenon: short-run increasing returns to labor, or SRIRL, which describes the tendency for fluctuations in output to be associated with less than proportionate fluctuations in labor inputs. He argues that the existing literature does not rule out the possibility that the size and duration of SRIRL that are found so regularly in the empirical work in this area are substantially biased by errors in variables. Thus his approach resembles Milton Friedman's use of the statistical errors-in-variable model in his study of the consumption function. Friedman postulated a true proportionality relationship between consumption and income and argued that the observed short-run relationship between observed consumption and income was too fiat because they contain errors of observation -- transient consumption and transient income. In the same vein, Sims argues that SRIRL may be a statistical artifact. Robert M. Solow: The most important results of this paper are summarized in Table 3. That table shows an almost proportional cumulative response of man hours of production workers to output, with the strongest response in the contemporaneous month and the full response completed within six to nine months. There is evidence for this finding in all industries reported except paper and possibly primary metals. Such results are of interest for two main reasons: they can guide the interpretation of monthly unemployment statistics and they can help in analyzing the short-term employment-output relation in macro models.

This article presents comments from two economists on the article "Fiscal-Monetary Activism: Some Analytical Issues," by Arthur Okun. David I. Fand: Okun's article probe and clarifies some of the analytical differences between those who favor an activist macroeconomic policy and those who favor rules or guidelines. Several dimensions of the activism-guidelines discussion in the past four decades are reviewed in this paper. Okun argues persuasively that the discussion of activism versus guide-lines (or rules) centers on the strategy mid tactics of stabilization policy, while the discussion of monetarism versus fiscalism focuses on the content of stabilization policy. Okun develops the arguments in favor of activism, and his thoughtful analysis will find acceptance by many who do not share his policy views. The emphasis and language in his paper inevitably reflect his partiality to activism. Okun's excellent paper focuses attention on the activist-guideline approaches to macroeconomic policy. His analysis will motivate and help the reader to analyze these alternative postures and will stimulate further discussion of this important policy issue. William Brainard: This paper serves a very useful purpose in clarifying the various analytical considerations involved in debates about stabilization strategy and in illuminating the relevance to those debates of lags, uncertainty, and costs of adjustment. Okun correctly points out that, so long as instruments are not perfectly correlated, it is optimal to use a combination of instrument, or "policy packages," even if we are pursuing a single objective.

This article presents observations on the paper presented by Edwin S. Mills and David De Ferranti during a panel discussion focused on the possible causes of the inflation of city size. Furthermore, the focus and emphasis of the Mills' and De Ferranti's paper centers on the analysis of cost in relation to city size. Moreover, it is illustrated on how the elasticity of urban costs is affected by city size. Finally, the article stresses the importance of including the benefit or revenue side in the analysis of the factors influencing city size.

The article presents authors' comments on two research papers related to wheat trade in the U.S. by economists John A. Schnittker and Helen C. Farnsworth. These authors say that two papers reveal somewhat divergent papers on U.S. wheat policy. They have done much to clarify a tangled situation and to document grave weaknesses in our current program. A clue to one of the causes of the apparent breakdown of the wheat policy is found in Farnsworth's paper, which sketches in some detail the international ramifications and effects of American wheat policy. As wheat policy demonstrates, the U.S. is simply too powerful a force in world markets, in the world economy. Indeed, merely minimizing damaging effects of a policy upon other nations is not enough. Wheat is a world problem and requires a world solution. Moreover Schnittker's paper for a wheat program is over particularized and the choice he noses between different specified methods of meeting these imperatives is a false choice. If farm policy-makers were to separate their thinking of the problem of rural poverty from the problem of efficient commercial agriculture and were to treat welfare problems of rural people as welfare rather than market problems, the way should be open to solution for more trying difficulties in the farm economy.

The article presents authors' comments on two research papers on cost accounting by economists James C. Bonbright, John R. Meyer and Gerald Kraft. Bonbright's paper said that costs be allocated in such a way that rates based on the costs allocated to a product should induce an efficient supply of the product and an efficient distribution of that supply. He grappled with some accounting and regulatory practices that cause a consistent bias away from such an efficiency-inducing allocation of costs and resources and recommended that attempts to allocate total costs be abandoned. Instead, he would determine the long-run marginal cost for each product to the extent that rates based on these marginal costs do not provide revenues equal to total costs, he would adjust rates, the method of adjustment varying with individual cases. As he points out, there is no single formula for the allocation of these non-marginal costs that will always satisfy the requirements of efficiency. The paper of Meyer and Kraft nicely complements the conceptual approach of Bonbright with a statistical study that is essentially an attempt to identify the marginal costs in transportation, on the basis of which the regulators can use their powers of traffic allocation, direct and indirect, to encourage the efficient use of transportation resources.

The article presents comments of different persons on price control and rationing papers written by various economists. According to Paul M. O'Leary, until now price controls, production, and materials controls, wage controls, and rationing have been, in the main, consistent one with another. The War Production Board's control of the demand for industrial materials and the U.S. Office of Price Administration's rationing control of the demand for certain consumer's goods have contributed tremendously to the relative success of price control. According to Elmer B. Staats, he believes that there is agreement that their anti-inflationary controls are highly interdependent and that price and rationing during the period cannot succeed unless the controls are adequately co-ordinated. Secondly, each of the papers emphasizes the practical difficulties which will face the government agencies during the transition period in maintaining necessary controls in the face of the desire to relax government restrictions, inability to retain personnel, and what may appear to be a conflict with a program for full employment by industry.

This article presents abstracts of several articles related to economics. The abstract of the article "Formal Structure of Majority Decision," by Y. Murakami tries to investigate, by introducing some theorems on three-valued logic, logical conditions for a more general class of majority decision including representative system in its widest sense. The abstract of the article "The Effect of Air Pollution on House Values," by H.O. Nourse reports that air pollution will have a detrimental effect on residential property values. Economists, real estate appraisers, and urban land economists, have made general statements about the loss of residential property value resulting from air pollution and other nuisances. These judgments, however, have been a result of general observation of the real estate market, rather than any attempt to statistically estimate the extent of damage caused by air pollution. The model of urban house values used for the analysis is an adaptation of the matrix model. Both cross-section and time-series approaches to measurement are developed.

This article attempts to verify writer Gottfried Haberler's assertion in his book "The Theory of International Trade," that economist David Ricardo had considered income effects in the theory of the transfer mechanism. The main aspect of Ricardian theory, which Mason then uses to show that no income effect reasoning has been involved, is the long-run static nature of Ricardo's analysis. This approach to an interpretation of Ricardo's writings on the subject has the added advantage of making many of Ricardo's seemingly inconsistent statements mutually consistent. The main problems discussed in this great debate had to do with the effects on the exchanges of England's paper currency and credit creation, harvest failures, and the payment of foreign subsidies. For the purposes of exposition the analysis at first proceeds on the assumption that a universal gold standard exists. Later on the effects of credit creation under an inconvertible paper standard are examined. An increase of money by 50 per cent would cause wages and prices to rise in an equal proportion. As a consequence imports would increase and exports would decline until the resultant gold-flows would reestablish equal levels of money in all countries and the balance of trade would return to equilibrium.

The article presents information on a scientific symposium, held at Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, on problems connected with the productivity of labor, as of November 1, 1960. This scientific symposium, arranged by Historical and Social Sciences Section of Hungarian Academy of Sciences and by Academy's Institute of Political Economy, was held in the academy building in 1959. Hungarian economists displayed keen interest in this meeting, which was attended by 19 delegates from socialist countries. Among persons who submitted papers or took part in discussions were research workers from scientific institutes, university professors, statisticians, planning specialists, chartered accountants and engineers. They discussed 29 papers and reports which had been reproduced and distributed before hand. Over sixty speeches were given during these discussions.

The article author comments on views of economist A.N. McLeod on his (author's) paper on trade and investment in underdeveloped areas. McLeod has expressed apprehension about absence of a definition for underdeveloped areas. In his paper, the author had referred to countries which are poor for reasons other than war destruction. These countries also happen to be mainly agricultural and exporters of primary products. The author also notes that McLeod himself falls back "more on usage than pure logic," so he should not be bothered about absence of definition. The author did not mean "a country that is not at present industrialized." The under-developed countries are agricultural (or mining) countries, but not all agricultural (or mining) countries are under-developed. The author does not have to show that merely geographic investment is "actually harmful to the recipient country." Foreign indebtedness is bad, even if the results of the investment are not "actually harmful." The onus is onus is on someone to demonstrate that the investment is positively useful.

Outlines the topics for sessions on higher education and economists in the 1970s.

The article presents the comments of several economists concerning the analysis of Arthur Okun and Nancy Teeters on the problems associated with the full employment surplus in the U.S. Warren Smith stresses that he has been skeptical about the usefulness of the full employment surplus. He states that the function of the surplus calculation is to provide a summary number that will offer a prime estimate of the impact of the budget on the economy. He claims that this concept is not applied in Okun and Teeters report. Meanwhile, R. A. Gordon denotes that he has a few difficulties and many agreements with the paper. On the part of weighting system, he agrees on the concept to adjust expenditures, transfer payments and taxes. Moreover, discussion of Okun regarding the comments is also given.

This article presents the author's comments on the paper of economist Robert Mundell entitled International Trade and Factor Mobility. The article showed that under the factor price equalization theorem, impediments to commodity improvements will stimulate factor movements and vice versa. A difficulty with this analysis, as Mundell himself points out, is that although it is impediments to commodity trade which give rise to the factor movements from one country to the other, it must be assumed that goods sent to the factor exporting country in payment for factor services are not subject to such impediments. It seems to me that Mundell's problem arises only because he did not follow through completely the logic of his own argument. It can be seen then that with a generalization of Mundell's model, it has been possible to overcome the basic difficulty of that paper by showing that the equalization of factor and commodity prices through factor movements can be achieved without commodity trade in payment for factor services. Expressed differently, the equalization of factor and commodity prices can be attained through either the free movement of factors or the free exchange of commodities.

This article provides the author's comments on paper by economist Vernon Smith on the theory of credit rationing developed in Jaffee and Modigliani (J-M). Smith's paper generalizes our results to include the case in which the borrower's investment and hence his end of period value is explicitly a function of the size of the loan granted by the bank. It should perhaps be added, before turning to these issues, that Smith's contribution takes on further significance in view of the literature that has been concerned with the variable-size assumption. As it turns out, the general approach adopted by Smith parallels my analysis of the problem. In order for the analysis of credit rationing developed in J-M to remain valid under the variable-size assumption, the essential condition is that the three main characteristics of the offer curve remain unchanged. In the concluding section of his paper, Smith provides an analysis of credit rationing under conditions of Pareto optimality in the loan market. The analysis is restricted, however, in that the relative degree of market power attributed to the banks is not made explicit, and, consequently, the implications of varying degrees of bank market power cannot be developed.

The article comments on papers presented by economists John Hause and Eric Hanushek during a panel discussion focused on school achievement and the effect of achievement or ability on earnings. The author commended Hause's effort to seek out and refine longitudinal data for the study of ability and income. Furthermore, the excesses in Hanushek's conceptual model of school achievement were emphasized and assessed. Moreover, despite the relatively significant arguments and theses of Hanushek, William T. Garner criticized several issues in the research wherein Hanushek failed to measure the actual utilization of inputs, and to specify the technology in which the utilization takes place. Roger Alcaly on the other hand suggested that the role and nature of the educational system in society must be addressed before a study regarding the equity and efficiency of that educational system is undertaken. Charles Z. Wilson believed that Hause and Hanushek made major contribution to the development of educational production functions using historical or time-oriented data.

This article presents a commentary on the issue of optimum lifetime distribution of consumption expenditures. This paper has sought to show that there are serious errors in Lester C. Thurow's paper which nullify his empirical results. His assertion that zero-savers are likely to be behaving optimally has been shown to be false. His "scaling up" technique has been shown to depend on a critical and probably false assumption. Finally the authors have developed a simple model which can be used to predict optimal consumption and in which the patterns of the zero-saving income level and of optimal consumption are necessarily different. Preliminary results suggest that the divergence between actual and optimal consumption, at least in the aggregate, is not particularly large.

The article presents discussions by economists on some papers that are published in the May 1, 1970 issue of the journal "American Economic Review." The author states that economist Robert J. Lampman's paper first presents an accounting framework for analyzing the processes of extra market redistribution in the U.S. and then goes on to discuss some current income maintenance reform proposals. The author discusses each of those quite distinct parts of the paper in turn. According to the author, the accounting framework Lampman outlines represents an attempt to classify and measure the processes of redistribution of incomes in much the same way the national income accounts treat processes of production and the market generation of incomes. In any pioneering effort of this sort, difficult conceptual issues arise which require hard decisions and inevitably invite some disagreement as well. Among several such issues that could be raised with Lampman's approach, the author has selected two that especially interest him for discussion.

The article presents a list of conferences to be held on various topics, from December 27-29, 1963 in Boston, Massachusetts as part of the 76th Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. A meeting on the theme Principles of Efficiency to be presided over by Paul A. Samuelson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The papers to be discussed are The Measurement of Waste by Arnold Harberger and The Efficient Allocation of Capital by Jack Hershleifer. A meeting on the theme Re-Appraisals in American Economic History to be presided over by Douglass North of the University of Washington. The papers to be discussed are A New Look at Hunter's Hypothesis about the Ante-Bellum Iron Industry by Peter Temin, Ante-Bellum Interregional Trade Reconsidered by Albert Fishlow and Canals and Development -- A Discussion of the Issue by Roger Ransom. A meeting on Comparative Costs and Economic Development to be presided over by C. P.Kindleberger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The papers to be discussed are The Experience of India by Wilfred Malenbaum, The African Situation by Walter A. Chudson and The Case of Brazil by Werner Baer.

This article presents discussion regarding understanding of economics by the whole population. American Economic Association has organized a meeting concerning this issue. According to the author, the far-reaching significance of this development is still only dimly realized. The authors of these three stimulating and instructive papers have referred repeatedly to the National Task Force on Economic Education. members of the American Economic Association realize how much the economics profession owes to the Committee for Economic Development and the Joint Council on Economic Education for initiating this frontal attack on economic ignorance, for putting this Association in the forefront in this nation-wide effort, and for giving the economics profession full academic freedom, for the content of these several programs. Although it is only right that the economists themselves should receive full credit for their professional performances. But without the stimulation, encouragement, and financial support from National Task Force report, Material Evaluation Committee report, and television series it would not have been possible to discuss the merits and limitations of the report of the National Task Force here.

The article presents authors' comments on two research papers on economic development of China by economists Ta-Chung Liu, Kung-Chia Yeh and Alexander Eckstein. In his paper Eckstein has argued that the Chinese followed in Soviet footsteps of concentrating on capital-intensive industrial projects during their First Five Year Plan. During the Second Five Year Plan, however, they opened up a second front of labor-intensive investments in both industry and agriculture, thereby embracing technological dualism. The article discusses in brief Eckstein's underestimation of the Soviet rate of investment, the extent of "technological dualism" in underdeveloped areas and the reason for disparities between China and the Soviet Union in labor productivity growth rates. Moreover, the article asserts that paper of professors Liu and Yeh is a major contribution to the literature on Communist China. It is a study, which is a short-run contribution sheds light on specific economic developments in China from 1949 to present, and in a long-run contribution pointedly reminds that there is nothing so basic or central to economics as its' principles.

The article presents authors' comments on two papers on teaching economics at high school level in the U.S. by economists Howard S. Ellis and G.L. Bach. Both professors Ellis and Bach have asked for a separate course to be taught in the high schools by competent teachers who understand the spirit of the discipline as well as its techniques. Both have asked that the theory should be made the center of the course. Those who have examined the high school texts and know how heavily they emphasize consumer finance will see this as a distinct step forward. Both have also noted in their papers that the citizen is not in a position to think about public policy without a basic understanding of economics. Professor Ellis has designed his semester course around the needs of the citizen, and Bach has promised that his task force would present a statement of the minimum level of economics essential to good citizenship and reasonably attainable through the high schools. The article agrees that a theory oriented economics course for the citizen is a good first goal in view of the present state of economic illiteracy in the public school system.

The article presents authors' comments on three research papers on economic development after Second World War by economists Erik Lundberg, George H. Hildebrand and Shigeto Tsuru. These papers point out some striking contrasts among the experiences of countries including Scandinavia, Japan and Italy and the postwar experience of the U.S. For example, these papers insistently raise the question why the U.S. has done so poorly in achieving stable and rapid growth. They discuss whether it is a matter of economic structure, or partly a fault of economic policy. Research paper by Hildebrand provides a summary both of the Italian postwar economic achievement and of Italy's still pressing problems of unemployment and incomplete development. But there are aspects of his analysis that needs to be questioned. Moreover, papers of Hildebrand and Tsuru gave the impression that something of a catching-up process has been important in the Italian and Japanese economies. In his paper Lundberg drew attention to some destabilizing effects of governmental action in Sweden. They refer to public investments or publicly controlled investments as an instrument of anti cyclical policy.

The article presents authors' comments to three research papers on problems of urban metropolis viewed in economic terms by economists Charles M. Tiebout, Benjamin Chinitz and Louis Winnick. Their effort to deal with the problems leads to a number of different discoveries. Winnick apparently has in mind, but does not discuss, an over-all view of the desirability and needs for redevelopment in certain parts of the U.S. metropolitan areas as a benefit to the community. The effect of his paper is to focus on this undiscussed question by way of clearing the underbrush. Chinitz has identified a number of behavioral problems which appear to affect all aspects of the functioning of the urban economy but which arise out of social and institutional patterns common to the city as a whole rather than out of purely economic considerations. Tiebout gives a look at the opposite side of Chinitz' coin, using somewhat the same techniques as Winnick. Instead of focusing on the total reaction of the urban economy to growth and change, he focuses on the patterns of internal distribution. His major contribution appears to be again that of clearing some of the underbrush and making clearer the exact nature of the problems that one can face in pursuing his suggested analysis.

The article presents authors' comments on various research paper related to future markets by economists Holbrook Working and Paul B. Cootner. The article says that Working presented a case history in what he has named the economics of the empirically based concept, a branch of economics that progress in the manner of other sciences. The forward thrust is carried by the new concept that is nudged into being by stubborn facts inconsistent with the received theory. The case history is that of the commodity markets. Working points to six new concepts and describes the occasions of their birth. However, the commodity markets do not afford an ideal example of scientific progress. The main general conclusion one could draw from these two papers is that they appear to represent a tendency in the study of futures markets to minimize the role of uncertainty. Allowing uncertainty itself to play a more fundamental role is not likely to be easy. Even the notion of certainty equivalence that has proven so useful in other areas seems misapplied in the study of those markets that have developed in order to reduce or transfer uncertainty.

This article presents a discussion on the research paper "An Empirical Measurement of the Built-In Flexibility of the Individual Income Tax," in the U.S., by Leo Cohen, a professor at the Kansas State College, Kansas. Economists have long believed that the built-in flexibility of the individual income tax is substantial. But this expectation has not been confirmed by the data. The built-in flexibility of any tax can be regarded as the product of the built-in flexibility of the tax base and the marginal rate of tax on the change in the tax base. The built-in flexibility of the individual income tax turns out to be low for two reasons, the proportion of a rise in personal incomes that appears in the tax base is surprisingly low, on the order of 55 percent, and the marginal rate applying to a change in the tax base has never exceeded 31 percent at 1953 rates and 28 percent at present rates, and most of the time it has been substantially lower. As a consequence, the maximum observed built-in flexibility of the individual income tax has been no higher than about 17 percent at 1953 rates and 15.5 percent at present rates in the U.S.

The article presents discussion by various economists, on the two papers by Arthur H. Cole and Ross M. Robertson about the changing role of competition and economic growth in the U.S. economy. According to Frank H. Knight, the paper on the role of entrepreneurship in economic growth does not deals with concepts and principles in a way to throw down a direct challenge to a theorist. One thing he misses in this article is any use of words recognizing that profit means profit or loss and is in fact as likely to be a loss as a gain. It is surely a significant fact that although the entrepreneur is dynamically the central figure in our free enterprise economy, his function in its purity and on the whole does not seem to share in the fruits of production, or even shares negatively. Commenting on the two papers the author that the common theme of the two papers probably lies in the view that theorists have failed to develop the analytical apparatus which is best suited for prediction and policy making in the mid-century U.S.

The article presents views of different persons on consumption economics papers written by various economists. According to S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup, Dr. Alan Kotok's important and well-organized paper concludes with a challenge to economists and political scientists to give more attention to the economics of conservation and to the problem of bridging the existing gap between economic theory and practical public policy. According to John Ise, professor John Williamson has done well to devote much of his attention to the checking of rather late predictions, such as those of the National Conservation Commission, of 1909, even though the outlines of the conservation policy of the government were fairly well established by 1909, and conservation appeals and predictions which appeared from that time on had less effect than those which appeared earlier. According to Eugene Staley the paper on "Forest Products in a World Economy," by Egon Glesinger, was very interesting and suggestive. The thoughts he puts forward as an outline of forest-product policies for the projected Food and Agriculture Organization certainly look in the right direction.

The article focuses on the career of U.S. political economist Henry George. In December, 1868, George was engaged by "The San Francisco Herald" to go to New York and try to get the paper admitted to the Associated Press. Failing that, he was to establish a special news service for "The Herald." Failing to get "The San Francisco Herald" into the Associated Press, George returned to Philadelphia, where he gathered all the news he could, revamped and condensed it and wired it in cipher to his paper. His small service proved to be so competitive that the other San Francisco papers, which were in the Associated Press Service, brought pressure on the Western Union Telegraph Co. to refuse the business. The owner of "The San Francisco Herald" was strangely silent at his end of the line. Alone George fought the dragon of monopoly. The shocking contrast between monstrous wealth and debasing want permitted the man from the West no peace. He kept searching for the reason for this disparity. As editor of "The Transcript" George was stimulated to study and discuss many problems of the day. But it was the problem that seemed to him to be at the root of all others--the problem of poverty--that harassed him.

In this article, the author replies economist Robert E. Kuenne's comments on re-valuation of the role of identities in economic models and interpretations of Walra's and Say's Laws. The term "identity" has been familiar to mathematicians too long to have to justify it in a note on economics, but from the fact of their superfluity in model-building one cannot infer that there is no advantage in using them. The one thing that must be emphasized here is that confusion can arise when one refers to statements as identities when they are not identities, or to hypotheses when they are identities. In his declared emancipation from linguistic conventions, these are faults that Kuenne cannot avoid perpetrating, and his paper suffers accordingly. To give but two instances here: (1) In his Part II he informs us that the basis of Walras' Law, which he (Kuenne) regards as an identity and which states that the value of all goods demanded, including money, is equal to the value of all goods supplied, is based on a budget restraint--clearly an empirical statement or postulate.

ABSTRACT Questions about the "adequacy" of both the quantity and quality of scientific and engineering manpower to meet private and social needs have remained at the forefront of manpower discussions for almost two decades. Mr. Hansen's paper attempts to define some of the issues in the discussion of "shortages" by surveying the various positions taken, alternative approaches to research in the field, and the analytical efforts of economists. It then explores in more detail the projection approach and subsequently proposes the rate-of-return approach to provide new insights into these issues. Finally, the paper questions the reasons for the great concern about scientific and engineering manpower and the direction of what little research there has been in this field. Mr. Moser comments on the contrasts between the American and European scenes and the role of the rate-of-return approach for estimating future as well as current needs. Mr. Brown remarks on the difficulties of taking into account a number of noneconomic factors in labor market behavior and questions whether it is easier to determine future demand, future wage rates, or future supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to draw attention to one of the sharpest expressions of the cleavage of attitudes between economists and businessmen, and to advance some tentative suggestions for improvements in both analysis and application. This relates to the use by business of a method of cost-volume-profit analysis, and of pricing and volume adjustments, which is referred to as break-even analysis and which, prima fade, ignores the economists' generalized theorems of cost and revenue behavior. The arguments which the paper has developed, however, set a program of research and development by the cost accountant, and suggest that economists now give their attention to examining the shape and stability of aggregate revenue and cost functions over time and over output ranges, applying their resources of statistical analysis to the reconstruction of empirical microfunctions and variables. For the financial manager in industry, the lesson of the analysis is that he cannot rely with the same degree of confidence on the more naive forms of his break-even charts.