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The article presents a critical discussion of the two papers by Edgar M. Hoover and Joseph Shister on the factors related to investment for the individual firms. According to the author Hoover has demonstrated considerable dexterity in weaving into his model several of the more important institutional characteristics. But Hoover seems to stop short of asking the significant questions relevant to economic growth. The really important one would seem to be, do the institutional changes outlined make for more or less capital accumulation? The author remarks that if one fully accept the analysis as realistic of firm behavior, what changes are portended in the rate of economic growth? Turning now to Professor Shister, the impression which is immediately gained from his paper is the breadth of its scope and the transparency of its composition. Shister chose to deal with his subject on an over-all level, relating union practices and policies to the growth pattern of the American economy as a whole. This approach has both its merits and its shortcomings.

The article discusses various research papers by economists that are concerned to varying degrees with whether private efficiency is also social efficiency. Much of Joe S. Bain paper is concerned with the heterogeneity within geographic areas and among plants and firms in relation to survivor test applicability to the demarcated markets. Small plants located away from manufacturing centers often have lower costs than their relative scale would indicate. The proposal of Oliver E. Williamson to give weight to predicted allocative efficiency of private actions that are suspect under present antitrust policy, particularly that on mergers, must include methods of distinguishing private from economic gain. Williamson's proposal is directed primarily to the current policy on mergers, the phase of antitrust policy for which his suggestion least needed. Lester G. Telser suggests that a positive coefficient for the advertising to sales ratio in the Comanor-Wilson regression may indicate that the measured profit rate is an upward biased estimate of the true profit rate where the bias varies directly with the ratio of advertising outlays to sales.

The article presents information regarding the annual business meeting. The sixty-seventh annual business meeting of the association was held in Wayne on December 30, 1954. The business meeting was considered an appropriate time to publicize them. A brief discussion of the relation of the Association to economic education from the floor followed the presentation of these reports. Brief mention was also made of matters relating to the status of the profession. Academic freedom in its various aspects continues to be of concern to the officers of the Association. Attention is being given to the subject of freedom of teaching, research and publication. A proposal that the Association embark on a series of republication volumes on economic growth was discussed at length and the consensus seemed to be that the Committee be encouraged to reformulate its proposals, not along the line of publishing a series of six volumes, but of presenting a prospectus of one volume of readings or possibly two. This proposal, in effect, would widen the purposes of the Committee in that it involves not only the encouragement of research efforts but their direction as well.

In order to minimize the danger of misunderstandings that is ever present in discussions on topics such as the one of this session, the author wants first of all to settle a few preliminary points before taking up his subject, which is the relevance, for the economic future of this country, of the present state of inflationary pressure. For the purposes of this paper, the author defines socialism as that organization of society in which the means of production are controlled, and the decisions on how and what to produce and on who is to get what, are made by public authority instead of by privately-owned and privately-managed firms. Observe that though both socialists and antisocialists have of course ideas of their own on the subject, it is hardly possible to visualize a socialist society in this sense without a huge bureaucratic apparatus that manages the productive and distributive process and in turn may or may not be controlled by organs of political democracy such as people have today--a parliament or congress and a set of political officers who depend for their position upon the results of a competitive struggle for votes.

This study emphasizes the dynamism of the enterprise approach in manufacturing geography and the elusive quality of the milieu concept. It identifies the facilitating and restraining conditioning elements of the changing milieu of a large shipbuilding firm which, form 1950 to 1964, the period analyzed, comprised a major though rapidly declining part of the export base of Northern Ireland. The paper suggests that the local region provided a relatively permissive milieu for the firm, though it offered few opportunities for diversification. Competitive difficulties that arose during the period came mainly from the changing international milieu, especially movements in the composition of world demand and the appearance of Japanese suppliers. These difficulties were suggested in part to reflect the condition of the firm's internal resources, but they were increasingly assigned to the state of its national milieu. Also outlined are some of the firm's adoptive and adaptive features and the form of its adverse impact, including through multiplier effects, on the development of the local region.

The article presents abstracts relating to marketing history and trends. They include "What's new in marketing," and "Chain construction, modernization expenditures to rise 8.1% in 1965."

Productivity is a ratio without an upper limit. It is closely related in concept with the idea of a changing technology and its connotations are dynamic. If productivity is doubled, there is no inherent reason why it cannot be doubled again and yet again and no comparison with perfection or any standard of excellence is implied. One firm, for example, may be highly efficient in the sense that it operates smoothly and without waste of resources in the context of the technology it employs but at the same time it may be unprogressive, only marginally profitable and with dim prospects for the future unless changes are made. Another firm may be inefficient in obvious ways, but progressive, productive and profitable. Comparable distinctions are important at the national level, and it is not efficiency in any ordinary sense that will be most relevant to international productivity comparisons. Great Britain tends to be somewhat more restrained and hence exerts less pressure toward improvements in production techniques

Venezuela has become the sixth largest market for United States exports. This article points out some of the important characteristics of the Venezuelan market, and the problems that U. S. firms encounter in selling there. The discussion centers on the marketing structure and its influence on the further economic development of Venezuela. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship can and should be viewed as a corporate function. How to build this function into an existing organization, however, requires some knowledge of those organizational factors which promote and hinder entrepreneurial action. This article identifies and discusses what some of these factors are and suggests how they might be used in practical management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the role businessmen and industry plays in developing Sudan's economy. It describes the geological region that the Sudan is comprised of and how these regions are utilized in Sudan's economy. It states that there are four types of institutions which are behind the important economic decisions in Sudan, including the government, foreign firms, and privately owned local businesses. It talks about government regulation of firms in Sudan and the emphasis on Sudan's government being the primary economic and social institution.

The road to complete business recovery and faster economic growth for the United States is not the path of tax cuts and heavy stimulus to consumption. It is built instead upon a combination of expanded public and private investment resulting in a deepening of capital investment in new plants, technologies, and productive facilities that will increase this nation's future capacity to produce. That is the new economic frontier, this authority, one of the President's advisers, states. Will we be able to cross it successfully? Probably, he thinks, but outlines some of the challenges which must be met soon, if we are to hold our own against other countries whose economies surpass us in rates of growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how many Western European countries have been able to undergo successful economic recovery under the Marshall Plan. The author notes that these countries returned to prewar levels to production and consumption and that many organizations in these countries are now competing with U.S. businesses and manufacturers. The author notes that there have been numerous causes for this economic recovery such as U.S. economic assistance; however, this article examines how the implementation of new business practices and organizational structures and methods have helped aid this economic recovery.

The population and economic power of France are concentrated east of a line from Le Havre to Marseille, and especially in the Paris agglomeration. A policy of aménagement du territoire has attempted to counter the weight of Paris by encouraging decentralization of factories and offices. Regional metropolises, or métropoles d'équilibre, can provide more effective leadership and better prospects for a new national equilibrium than reliance upon the largest center in each of the twenty-one planning regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to argue that the view is a product of deductive theorizing, conveniently suited to a general discussion of the rapid economic development of Japan, but hardly supportable when a closer examination is made of the behavior, decisions, and motivations of the leading Meiji entrepreneurs. To show that the "community-centered" entrepreneurs are a product of deductive theorizing, two closely connected points must be made. The first is that the practice of emphasizing the class origin of Meiji entrepreneurs is continued in order to support the current view of "community-centered" entrepreneurs, though it hinders rather than aids the understanding of the entrepreneurial function performed during the crucial years of Japan's economic transformation. The second is that the Meiji entrepreneurs are often revealed as unabashed profit-maximizers, regardless of their class origin, when one examines their deeds rather than their public utterances, and the results rather than the reasons given in the autobiographies for their business decisions.

The article focuses on the economic conditions in the U.S. in 1896 and 1905. The country managed to reverse its position in the past ten years instead of the crippled industrial and financial state of 1894, with the its principal industries declining, its great corporations drifting into bankruptcy, and its government forced to borrow on terms from Europe to maintain the public credit. The country shows a community with prosperity and whose productive industries had developed such strength. There is the rise in American financial and industrial prestige and the beneficial effects of the European harvest failure of 1897 and the Spanish War of 1898. The establishment of law pertaining to the gold standard for the U.S. in 1900 brings forth economic development for the country.

The article presents a section of abstracts related to area analysis. They include "Economic future of the western slope (Colorado)," "South Carolina and the National Economy," and "The brains behind big deals."