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The article assesses the economic value of the investment in the doctor of philosophy (Ph. D.) degree in economics. To derive the internal rate of return to the Ph. D. in economics, conventional cost-benefit methodology is used. A five-way classification was utilized to determine the variations in the conditions surrounding graduate work in economics. These classification are: by type of employment, method of financing, length of schooling, salary and earnings as measures of income and private and social cost-and-benefit perspectives.

The article presents a commentary on the paper "The Economic Effectiveness of On-the-Job Training: The Experience of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Oklahoma," by Loren C. Scott. It argues that Scott manipulated the data in order to prove the training of employees in the state is economically justifiable. The study compares the rates of return in the bureau's program and three other studies on the subject. It suggests that the relative success of training programs should not be assessed alone on the basis of the benefit-cost ratios or rates of returns.

This article examines and compares the ranking characteristics of Benefit-Cost Ratios and Net Present Value. The algebraic analysis of the author shows the circumstances under which these evaluation techniques give a contradictory ranking of investment projects and identifies the differing implicity reinvestment assumptions where the validity of these assumptions is examined. There is still dispute concerning which technique is preferable under uncertainty and which under capital rationing according to the author.

THIS paper focuses on the results and implications of recent cost studies in banking. Additional materials are discussed with a view toward placing the cost analyses in perspective. The following section provides a definition of a "socially optimal" banking structure in order to indicate the possible importance of returns to scale in banking. Succeeding sections consider the cost studies individually and provide an interpretation of their findings. An addendum treats selected problems of recent banking-structure research outside the area of cost analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economics textbooks now pouring from the competing presses give more attention to the behavior of costs and returns as influenced by variation factoral proportion than did the older treatises. Formerly, "diminishing returns" were explained simply and briefly. The fact of diminishing returns was said to be known to every practical farmer. Once stated, with a few simple hypothetical illustrations, it was supposedly patent to the most obtuse sophomore. The basic conception of returns in relation to variation of factors is now essentially that successive equal additions, or doses, of the variable factor, or input, applied to a definite quantity of the factor held constant, yield, up to a certain amount of input, successively larger increments of return. That theorem must therefore be taken for what it is, a keen piece of pure theory, applicable in real life as far as men are alertly efficient in choosing size of operations and in ordering factoral proportion, and as far as they are not bound by contractual relations, cause them to occupy more land than they have resources to work to the maximum advantage.

The article discusses the capacity of utilization and efficiency varience. Efficiency variance is analogous to the usual fixed overhead efficiency variance. The aim of this article is to clarify the framework and to appraise the place of an efficiency variance within that framework. Distinctions between effectiveness and efficiency are frequently very helpful in discussing planning and controlling. Effectiveness is the accomplishment of a desired objective. Efficiency is an optimum relationship between input and output. Efficiency is monitored by other means via the usual labor efficiency variances and similar variances that analyze variable cost factors. The use of an efficiency variance is helpful because it often explains why capacity was ineffectively utilized. However, for reasons explained in an earlier article, expressing the efficiency variance in terms of historical costs is objectionable. The association of the capacity efficiency variance with the expected idle capacity variance is an unnecessary direct link that may be more confusing than helpful.