The Optimal Utilization of Capital Stock and the Level of Economic Development.

That the extent of misuse of "scarce" capital is greater in less-developed economies than in advanced countries opens wide the question of why that should be the case. Two answers that naturally follow from the preceding analysis are (1) that distortions in the factor prices are such that they do not reflect real scarcities or (2) that perversities or rigidities in managerial response are such that production decisions do not respond to those prices. The comprehensive analysis of this subject, however, is left to a separate study. (Another issue which is not discussed has to do with the ratio of the firm's fixed to working capital. Several aspects of this subject have been examined in other contexts: Kim, 1968.)
In this paper the hypothesis that there is under-utilization of capital in less-developed economies has been defended on the basis of the sectoral output-capital ratios (Kim, 1969) and direct estimates from earlier studies (Jorgenson and Griliches, 1967; Kim and Kwon, 1973; Winston, 1971, 1974d). We now hope that, given the plausibility of the hypothesis as suggested here, others may also carry out further studies for other economies in order to measure the degree of utilization directly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]