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This paper presents a comparison between similar types of American and Canadian forecasts of annual gross national product for an identical period (1960-69) using the same error measures. It was concluded that on mean, mean absolute, and mean square error bases, American forecasts were significantly more accurate than were the Canadian ones in predicting relative changes in their respective annual gross national products during the period 1960-69. Forecasters in both the United States and Canada were likely to have made the same types of errors on average in forecasting any given year. The general conclusion from the analysis of the errors seemed to suggest that a bias toward underestimating change may be less evident in the American gross national product forecasts than in those made in Canada. The negative mean errors were smaller, the percentage of underestimates was smaller, the covariance components of the mean square errors were larger, and the regression and test statistics were less suggestive. One of the more important points is that when "adjustments" of the predictions for differences in the basic nature of the economies are made, the conclusions as to differences in the "accuracy" of aggregate forecasts made in various countries may change a great deal. That is, conclusions as to differences in forecasting ability based solely on the comparison of "absolute accuracy" could be seriously misleading if the economies are not of approximately similar natures. The method of "adjustment" used here assumes that information as to the nature of the economies is contained in the past history of the variables to be forecast, so that a more worthwhile comparison is obtained when the respective judgmental sets are first "adjusted" by extrapolative predictions from these past actuals. Comparisons of the "relative" accuracy of forecasts showed that the American predictions of annual gross national product percentage changes had larger relative mean square errors than did the Canadian sets. That is, the American sets were only about as accurate as, and probably less accurate then, relative to extrapolative predictions. the forecasts made in Canada. The predictive efficiency of the Canadian gross national product forecasts relative to that of the extrapolative predictions was generally higher than that of the American predictions; the amount of autonomous information and available extrapolative information included was also somewhat higher. However, the extrapolative information actually used in forecasting was quite low in both countries, probably because of the essentially trendless nature of percentage changes in gross national product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the principle component test of bank debits as a local economic indicator. Principal components analysis is a multivariate statistical technique which seems to have enjoyed little use by economists until recently, although its properties would appear to recommend it in fairly commonplace empirical problems. For purposes of this paper, the essential feature of principal components analysis is that it makes a linear transformation of a set of correlated variables into a new set of uncorrelated, or orthogonal, variables. The principal components can effect a reduction in dimensions by resolving several variables into few. The new variables have the property that they can be ordered with respect to each one's contribution to the joint variation of the original variables. In addition, the pattern of coefficients of the original variables as they enter the linear combinations may lend itself to heuristic description as representing meaningful dimensions of economic behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to present, within this theoretical framework, an analysis of some aspects of the interdependence of wages structures in the dual economy of Mandatory Palestine between the two world wars. During the Mandatory period, a Jewish and an Arab sector existed side by side, under the same British administration. The two sectors were regarded as separate economic units, the Jewish sector being much more developed than the Arab with regard to income, economic structure, and level of education. The Arab economy was characterized by a backward agricultural structure; the majority of the Arab labor force lived in rural settlements and engaged in agriculture mostly at the subsistence level. A small percentage of the Arab labor force was engaged in building, manufacturing, and the service industries. However, Arab enterprises outside agriculture were mainly small businesses (workshops, shops, etc.) relying only to a small extent on paid labor. On the other hand, a small percentage of the Jewish labor force was engaged in agriculture, which was highly capital intensive and based on advanced methods of farming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of industrialization in a developing economy is usually accompanied by significant changes in the structure of employment. Most characteristic is the shift of employment from agriculture, where both average and marginal labor productivities are low and consequently income per worker is low, to more productive nonagricultural sectors, where income per worker is higher, in this paper, an attempt is made to evaluate growth of the Pakistani economy over the intercensal period 1951-61 by first comparing an industry's relative share in the labor force with its relative share in total income or product and the changes in the two, and then quantifying the sources of growth of income during this period in terms of the product performance of different industries as well as of the whole economy. Parallel analyses are conducted for the two provinces of the country, namely, East Pakistan and West Pakistan. It is important to note that, although the Central Statistical Office has carried out several national labor force surveys since July 1963, the decennial population censuses of Pakistan remain the only reliable sources of comprehensive statistical data on labor force. Comparisons of the industrial distributions of labor force in different survey years (table B2) with those for the census years 1951 and 1961 (table 1) reveal that the reporting of the industry of a worker by these surveys is erratic and inconsistent. Marked fluctuations in the proportionate shares of different industrial sectors in labor force are reported. These cannot be explained entirely by seasonality of agriculture or changes in the structure of the economy. For example, the 1965 survey for East Pakistan shows three-fourths of the labor force in agriculture, about eleven percentage points less than was reported in 1961. This percentage again increases to about 80 in 1967-68. Also note the relative shares of the subservice sectors of commerce and government, personal, and other services,... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors of the labor-surplus models of the process of economic development have never claimed universal validity for their analyses. Lewis singles out Egypt, India, and Jamaica as economies to which his theory is "obviously relevant." Ranis and Fei mention India and Pakistan as typical of the dualistic economy to which their model applies, "with members of the family concentrated perhaps most heavily, in Asia and the Near East but also represented in parts of Africa and Latin America." Recent research has tended to cast doubt on the assumption (crucial to the way in which these models have been used) of a removable surplus of agricultural labor, even in such "typically labor-surplus" economies as these. At the same time as earlier inflated estimates of agricultural labor-surplus in "overpopulated" economies have been scaled down, it has been increasingly recognized that many low-income economies are suffering from a shortage of labor in agriculture, particularly in those parts of Africa and Latin America to which Lewis explicitly recognizes that his theory does not apply. All this means that the use to which the Lewis/Ranis/Fei type of model can be put is modified. It does not mean, however, that the analytical framework of these models is useless. There may be some economies which have now or are likely to have in the future redundant labor in agriculture. Even if there are none at all, the framework can still be used to yield valuable analytical insights. Thus the main purpose of this paper is to use the "labor-surplus" framework to analyze one of the areas which appears to be suffering from a labor deficit in agriculture—West Africa—and to assess its usefulness for this purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents evidence collected in a survey carried out in Western Samoa during 1961 confirming the existence of a not inconsiderable element of underemployment in that country. Also noted are some implications of this for economic development. It should be emphasized from the outset that the survey was undertaken more in the nature of an experiment than a full-scale and detailed project. It was essentially a supplement to another survey conducted by the writer at the time on the cash transactions of Samoan rural villagers, and its basic aim was to derive some rough measure of the work effort of the villagers which would then be related to the value of their production. For these reasons, both the scope and detail of the collected data are limited; nonetheless, the results are presented for what they are worth. First, a number of preliminary points are given by way of background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic growth was a subject of interest and concern to West African intellectuals in the nineteenth century, as it is to their successors today. Yet these pioneer thinkers had no theory or analytical tools designed specifically to explain the economic conditions facing them. To fill the void, Africans in the British colonies imported, modified, and even improved on portions of the social science apparatus used by the rest of the nineteenth-century English-speaking world. This paper describes certain highlights of the process whereby economic ideas, which constituted an important segment of Western technology, were transferred to British West Africa and were assimilated in the course of social modernization. The importation of economic doctrine was both influenced by and a determinant of growth. In the extent to which West Africans of a century ago found it necessary to reject as inappropriate or modify drastically economic doctrine received from abroad, this account suggests useful comparisons for the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the effect of plantation-based international trade on economic growth in Sri Lanka. Characteristics of the domestic economy; Types of exports; Effects of exports on economic growth; Export-induced demand for consumption items; Comparison with other export economies.

The purpose of this note is to indicate why the characteristics of research-and-development (R & D) activities can be expected to make the relative size of R & D expenditure depend on the economic size and the level of economic development of the country. The emphasis is put on the independent role that each, size and level, is expected to play, holding, so to speak, the other constant. The aprioristic discussion is followed by a simple first look at some data which tend to back up the distinction between size and level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the factors affecting the growth of Pakistan's economy. Economic distinctions between Hindus and Muslims; Entrepreneurship; Partial modernization.

Comments on the article of Hugh Patrick examining the financial development and economic growth in Hong Kong, China. Weakness of the financial structure; Developments in the operations of the merchant houses; Nexus between the economic and financial developments.

Discusses the sources of economic growth and retrogression in Czechoslovakia. Structure of Czechoslovak exports and imports; Growth of national income and trade turnovers; Share of principal commodity groups and regional distribution in total exports and imports; Low productivity of investments.

The aim of this study is to make wealth estimates, circa 1774, for the middle colonies, namely the provinces of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. It is a pilot study for all 13 North American colonies. From it I draw interim inferences regarding possible total private wealth for the 13 colonies combined. I also make rough comparisons of the order of magnitude of my estimates as compared with other wealth estimates for later dates. The estimates are based primarily on detailed inventories of "personal property" or "moveable estate" of decedents which survive in probate records. With respect to land and financial liabilities, data are available for a large portion but not all of the decedents studied. From these partial data, estimates are made for these wealth factors, by regression analysis, for the balance of the decedents for whom we lack such information. A cluster sample of decedents has been selected by drawing counties from a list of all counties then in existence in the middle and northern colonies. Each sample county provides a cluster of decedents. A county's probability of being drawn is proportional to its then-living population. Of the 12 counties drawn thus far, the five located in the three middle colonies have been used for this pilot investigation. The study provides estimates not only of total and per capita wealth but also of its composition. The measure throws some light on the level and kind of living yielded by the economy at the time considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]