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Radical changes, up and down, have taken place in the estimates of growth in total factor productivity in the U.S. made by different economists, or by the same economists at different times. If such estimates provide ‘some sort of measure of our ignorance,’ as Abramovitz once put it, we seemed to be a lot less ignorant in 1927 (when Cobb and Douglas published their famous paper), or in 1967 (when Jorgenson and Griliches published theirs), than we were in the years between (when Schmookler, Abramovitz, Kendrick, and Denison completed their studies), or than we are today (when we have, or will soon have, revised estimates by Denison and by Kendrick, and new estimates by Christensen and Jorgenson). Viewed in this perspective, many questions may be raised about the significance of the current estimates that something like a third or more of the rate of increase in U.S. national output is ‘due’ to increase in productivity, as well as about the concepts, data, and methods that underlie the estimates. A list of particular subjects worth considering for research is given and each is briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author comments on the article "Commercial Banking in the Sixties," by Paul S. Nadler. The article centers on the over-all growth of the commercial banking system in the 1960s as compared with growth in the gross national product (GNP). According to Nadler, that commercial banking deposits will not grow as fast as GNP, which results in the conclusion that other financial institutions will necessarily grow more rapidly than commercial banks. The author explains that he agrees with Nadler's findings.

The decade of the seventies thus far has witnessed a considerable amount of legislative attention directed at rural areas. Under the general heading or rural development no fewer than 48 bills were introduced in the first session of the 92nd Congress in the House of Representatives and 22 bills were introduced in the U.S. Senate. Few of these became law but the sheer numbers give some indication as to the political importance of the issues involved. The purpose of this paper is to focus on a portion of one of the most important pieces of rural development legislation, the Rural Development Act of 1972 (RDA-72). This article traces the legislative history and the philosophical assumptions of RDA-72 with particular regard to the provisions of rural industrialization in the U.S.

The purpose of the paper was to provide an objective and systematic appraisal of the capacity of black-owned commercial banks to finance economic development in the black community. This appeared to be a vital task at the time since these institutions were being formed at an accelerated rate with that specific aim in mind. On the basis of the evidence analyzed (virtually all of which was newly generated information available only through Federal bank supervisory agencies), I concluded that black banks were not viable instruments of economic development. However, I also concluded that they could perform some minor services of benefit to their local areas, and they could serve as symbols of black achievement. As an alternative source of financing, I proposed a domestic version of the existing Edge Corporations. These are subsidiaries of U.S. commercial banks formed for the purpose of conducting foreign financial activities. Among the latter, they can have varying amounts of equity investments in non-financial enterprises abroad. It was this feature which I thought offered promise as a means of expanding the availability of risk-bearing funds in black communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the tempo of this movement and the enormously important economic development role which the black banks are expected to undertake, it appears vital that an objective and systematic appraisal be made of the capacity of these institutions to perform this task. This paper is devoted to such an assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a financial framework for economic growth in the United States. The article presents a unified financial counterpart to a long-term economic projection. Based on assumptions of varying rates of growth, a set of projections of economic activity in 1970 is presented. A "judgment" model will be selected based on the results of the projections. The article then introduces a theoretical framework that links levels of economic and financial activity. By using the "judgment" model as a reference, the pattern of relationships will be applied to a projection of assets and liabilities for the individual components of the financial network.

The article presents commentary on the address "Long-Term Trends in the Financing of Regulated Industries, 1870-1950," by Melville J. Ulmer, "Trends in Capital Formation and Financing in Agriculture," by Alvin S. Tostlebee, and Sergei Dobrovolsky's "Capital Formation and Financing Trends in Manufacturing and Mining, 1900-1953," all included within the issue addressing the development of the U.S. capital market. The application of the historical data to the development of other countries is discussed, outlining implications of U.S. economic history on general financial theory.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sources of economic growth in Japan and in compare the results with those in the U. S. and Europe as studied by E. F. Denison. The method used by Denison is followed as far as possible. The character of this paper is of fact finding, and the interpretation of results or the originality of methodology is not dealt with here. The results may be summarized as follows. (1) Japan's growth rate is two times that of Europe and three times that of the United States. (2) The contributions of labor, capital, and the residual to economic growth are all higher for Japan than for the U. S. or Europe. (3) Factors which account for the higher contribution of labor to economic growth are (a) the higher rate of increase in employment, (b) less shortening of working hours, and (c) improved age and sex composition. (4) Factors which account for the higher contribution of capital to economic growth are a higher rate of increase in capital input and the high elasticity of production with respect in capital. (5) Other notable points include: (a) the contribution of education is lower for Japan; (b) the capital-labor ratio in Japan increased remarkably; (c) capital's share of national income is higher; and (d) 60% of Japan's economic growth is accounted for by the residual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a part of a larger study of economic growth in Canada, following the methods developed by Edward Denison in his book The Sources of Economic Growth in the United States and the publication Why Growth Rates Differ. The new material in this paper relates to Canada and the Canadian/U.S. comparison, while the material on Northwest Europe is drawn from the Brookings study. The present paper sets out the results to date on the differences in real output per employed person between Canada and the United States for one year, 1960. At this stage in our research the results indicate that the level of real output per employed person in Canada was about 20 per cent lower than in the United States in that year. On the basis of historical output data, it would appear that this margin of difference in Canadian/U.S. product levels has persisted throughout the present century. The central part of this paper examines the significance of differences in factor inputs in Canada and the United States and their contribution to the difference in income. The level of inputs per employed person in Canada accounts for only about 2 percentage points of the income difference between Canada and the United States. These results indicate that the overwhelming part of the difference in output per employed person between the two countries reflects the differences in output in relation to total factor inputs, rather than the magnitude of other factor inputs used in combination with labour. This result is consistent with earlier studies by Denison and others which have indicated the crucial importance of output in relation to total factor inputs, both in output growth over time and intercountry comparisons of output level. The body of the paper can give only brief attention to the numerous conceptual and statistical questions that arise in such a wide-ranging study, and the authors do not pretend to have tackled, let alone resolved, all of the wide range of problems related to this study. Nor do they claim any high degree of precision for the results, especially in the light of the statistical limitations of the basic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become almost a cliché that measured growth in the U.S. is being overstated. The classic on the subject is by Mishan, who argues persuasively that the (uncounted) externalities from production in industrialized economies are overtaking the production which these economies are counting. But externalities are not the only problems in measuring economic activity and economic growth. Two other problems of equal importance, but more amenable to measurement, are the distinction between final and intermediate production, and the quantification of nonmarket productive behavior. In this paper, we concentrate on one aspect of the measurement of nonmarket behavior—the value of production at home by housewives. Specifically, we will present estimates of the value of home based nonmarket production by housewives. These estimates will then be used to supplement various national product aggregates in order to calculate more accurate growth rates for the U.S. economy. We find that the value of nonmarket production by married women during the 1960's has averaged approximately thirty percent of the GNP and close to 40 percent of the national income. The inclusion of the nonmarket work of housewives in GNP would reduce the measured rate of growth of real GNP per potential worker by about ten percent, the exact amount depending on how the value of nonmarket work is estimated. Our estimates indicate a reduction in the absolute rate of growth of almost 0.25 percent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the adequacy of the growth record of the American economy in recent years. Within the past several years the question of whether or not the economy is advancing at a rapid enough pace has become a matter of serious interest to the general public as well as the economic specialist. This is true to such an extent that the economy's allegedly inadequate growth rate became one of the major issues in the 1960 presidential election campaign. The question of the adequacy of the growth performance of the American economy has been brought forcefully to public attention from a number of responsible and professionally competent sources. The central question in any discussion of the adequacy of the growth record of the economy is that of criteria. Evidence based upon per capita data rather than growth rates suggests that the economy's performance from 1944 through 1960 was relatively unsatisfactory. Real gains of sizable proportions were recorded in living standards as reflected in per capita consumption outlays, but the primary source of such gains was not the sustained growth iii the economy as a whole, but a large-scale shift in the end-use of the nation's total output. As the 1950's drew to a close, however, the possibilities of further progress in living standards from this particular source were becoming exhausted. The same holds for any future increases in the other major components of the output total, particularly investment outlays. In retrospect, therefore, the era 1945-1960 was primarily one in which the fruits of the economy's massive ware tune surge of growth were adapted to peacetime uses. It was not, an era of satisfactory growth.

This paper attempts to marshal available, albeit imperfect, evidence on the relationship between water availability and economic growth in the United States over the 1950-1960 decade. Since water resource investments are currently being planned on a very large scale as tools for promoting regional economic development (e.g. Appalachia and the Southwest) and since past water resource developments have frequently been defended in terms of their favorable impact on regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the policy acceptance in the U.S. of reliance on automatic fiscal stabilizers. The author provides a history of previous fiscal stabilizer studies. The author states that it is necessary to illustrate the potential incompatibility of an annually balanced budget that has economic stability. The article also discusses institutional changes which made automatic fiscal stabilizers more important and the acceptance of automatic fiscal stabilizers as part of government policy. An analysis of how the U.S. executive and legislative branch is involved is also provided.

This article focuses on investment prospects in the U.S. The article is the result of early research conducted by the Committee for Economic Development, but not a product of that body. The author discusses the immediate prospect of high employment and successful investment, then addresses concerns that the form of financing of investment may lead to depression and unemployment, and finally, addresses possible forms of investment financing that will successfully avoid depression and stagnation. The author presents strategies that will facilitate the flow of cash into equity as opposed to debt, including fiscal policy recommendations relative to tax structure and state and local regulations.

THE TEXT of this comment has pointed to three basic problems in the analysis of Sly and Chi which tend to invalidate their conclusion. All of these are serious issues that should have been dealt with by the authors. The two most serious of these issues, however, are the specification of variables and the existence of multicollinearity between variables which makes it impossible to interpret the regression results with any degree of confidence. Further work in this area may prove fruitful if a means can be devised to develop variables that measure the separate dimensions of modernization and economic development. However, these processes may be so interconnected that truly "independent" variables of an aggregate type do not exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to evaluate three variables, economic development, modernization and demographic behavior, as measures of the features of economic growth in the U.S. The two indices of economic well-being, disposable income and average wages in manufacturing adjusted for changes in the price level, measure roughly what they are intended to measure, but the first should be adjusted for changes in population size. In any case, they add little to the analysis not already captured by gross national product (GNP) as a measure of development. The insignificance of disposable income in the various regressions is the result of its high linear correlation with GNP. One of the consequences of multicollinearity is that it is difficult to disentangle the relative influences of the two variables. Hence, even if GNP correctly measured modernization and disposable income measured economic well-being, the regression results do not allow one to judge their relative importance. In light of these criticisms it would appear that the conclusion that changes in the level of structural modernization have a greater effect on mortality trends than do changes in the level of economic well-being.

This article is primarily an attempt to study the economic underpinnings of the allocation of water among competing uses. First, the impact of transferring water from low-productive to high-productive uses on the pace and pattern of economic development is examined in some detail. This is followed by a discussion of the economic implications of water transfer. First, the allocation of water in terms of the market for water rights is studied. Second, the various ramifications involved in water pricing are identified. The final section views the problem of water transfer and its consequences from the standpoints of both efficiency and equity and highlights some of the relevant issues. This study describes eight possible patterns for the use of unappropriated water in two river basin areas in New Mexico. The eight possible patterns of water use described in this article represent different combinations of water according to three major uses: Municipal and industrial, recreational, and agricultural. The results of the study indicated that the contribution of the Rio Grande basin to gross national product would be about $50 for each acre-foot used in irrigation, as against between $200-$300 for each acre foot used for fish and wildlife habitat, and between $3,000 and $4,000 for each acre-foot used in industry. This result, however, does not warrant the assumption that since industry yielded the highest value-added per acre-foot of water, and hence constituted the highest productivity, all available water should be allotted to industry.

The elements of a social system are also, in a sense, the components of change. The Loomis and Beegle listing of "elements" is adopted here: end, norm, status-role, power, rank, sanction, facility, and territoriality. Suggested applications to Pakistanian culture of observed situations and practices in the United States are discussed with respect to their involvement of these designated components. The changes proposed relate to the "dignity of labor," use of mosques, volunteer leadership, water-storage ponds, developing "village businessmen," family planning, kitchen improvement, land division, health education, and farm supply co-operatives. The purpose of the discussion is to illustrate and emphasize the crucial importance of social components in whatever changes are proposed under the aegis of "community development." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

World War II and the subsequent release of suppressed consumer demand resulted in high levels of economic activity and prosperity for the American people. Observers generally agree that the economic status of the Negro, measured in absolute terms, improved significantly during the 1940's. Disagreement is more likely to arise about changes in the economic status of the Negro relative to that of the White. The purpose of this article is to refine existing estimates of the relative gains of the Negro during the 1940's and to investigate the effects of upward occupational mobility, geographical mobility and changes in the racial age-education distributions upon the relative economic status of the Negro during the 1940's. To accomplish this an expanded version of the occupational index will be used. The use of an index is necessary since income data, which are comparable between 1940 and 1950, are given only on a national basis. The use of such data would preclude any regional analysis, thereby making it impossible to measure the effect of geographical mobility. In addition, it is generally recognized that depressed business conditions have a greater impact upon the Negro worker than upon the White worker. The severe depression of the 1930's undoubtedly reduced the Negro's relative income below what may be considered its long-term normal value.

This article addresses the economic changes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin which have not been matched by appropriate changes in legal, political and financial institutions. The fundamental change in the state is mobility. And this means automobile. It is ease of movement that made metropolitan areas possible and it is ease of movement that will control their future. The number of automobile registrations in the state has grown from 44,255 in 1921 to 173,713 in 1940 to 325,409 in 1960. This leap forward in mobility made possible a far greater breadth of choice as to where one would locate. It brought to an end the need to cluster. One's place of employment plays a declining role in the family decision about place of residence. Similarly, the surge in automobile use had lessened the need for industry to locate on rail or water routes. Related to the increased economic unity and interdependence is an increased economic specialization among the municipalities of the state. This, too, grows out of the growth of mobility. The economic specialization refers to the kinds of land use on which the different cities and villages concentrate. The delicate grading of property specialization is possible only when there is a very large population to draw from. It is mobility which supplied that large population.

This article focuses on the need for constructive analysis, planning, and policy to promote regional economic growth in the southern states of the U.S. The prospects and possibilities for the South's economic development are, of course, closely linked with growth of and changes in the national economy. During the past two decades, the South has shared increasingly well in national economic growth, and similar promise holds for the future. Although there are thus grounds for optimism, the expected improvement could presumably be made greater and more certain. The present momentum of Southern economic development provides a strong driving force which may be harnessed by special and concerted efforts to secure continued advance. Too much emphasis can hardly be placed on the productivity of the South's labor force in terms of its aptitudes, mobility, and employability. For several decades, the South has had somewhat more than its share of low productivity industry. Low-productivity areas are necessarily low-wage, low-income areas as well. A revealing example is the cotton-growing region of the South in which farms are typically too small, under-equipped, and poorly managed to be profitable. Such factors as the one-crop system, sharecropping, race, and an inadequate system of rural credit work in combination to reduce the productivity and cash incomes of these far too numerous farmers.

This article presents news related to public administration in the U.S., as of April 2001. The rapid proliferation of federally sponsored programs to assist communities in many ways has been accompanied by administrative confusion in Washington and in the communities being helped. The article examines problems of community planning and development. If there is to be a single system of coordination at the community level, embracing the multicounty organizations for non-metropolitan areas and the model cities mechanism for urban programs, then there must be a single point of leadership and coordination in the federal government. The inability of state governments to assume their necessary role in the solution of national problems must itself be recognized as a national problem, and one that must be approached and solved through national action like any other national problem. The article also presents comments on the reorganization plan of 1970 proposed by U.S. President Richard Nixon. Reorganization plan has the merit of ending a prolonged and costly inertia in the development of the presidential office.

This article seeks to explore the validity of the assumptions used by Congress and the Executive Branch in setting organizational criteria to be met by nationally subsidized local and regional nonfederal agencies. Multicounty economic development districts are specifically considered to test the proposition that variations in scale, treated as neutral in designing these units, can have negative effects for both the ability of certain local groups to have their interests represented in district policy and for the implementation of national goals through district programs. The data that are available and inferences which can be drawn from them support the hypothesis. Consequently, if predictable and successful national- local organizational linkages are to be established, efforts are needed to produce an explicit set of testable propositions about the interrelationship of organizational scale, structure, and behavior at the subnational level to performance in the achievement of federally defined values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses economic conditions in the United States in the early 1960s and the economic policies of the administration of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. The author examines factors that could contribute to economic growth. Other topics discussed include government planning, the fiscal and budgetary policies of the U.S. federal government, and government spending on military equipment and space exploration. The role of the United States in relation to other regions of the world economy is also addressed.