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This paper examines the ways in which legal norms enunciated by India's industrial tribunals are used by management and labor in their bilateral negotiations. Data from Indian courts and companies permit an empirical contrast between Durkheim's and Weber's analyses of the legal process. The evidence substantiates portions of both approaches: legal norms tend to be invoked as a function both of need for normative regulation and of the authority of the courts. A theoretical synthesis of the two positions is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of articles on economics published in the October-December 1964 issue of The Indian Economic Journal. The article Aspects of Trade Policy in India, by D. T. Lakdawala surveys the various aspects of trade policy in India. The various aspects of import regulation are critically scrutinized in the context of development. The problems of increasing imports which brings forth for consideration the various aspects of import substitution are examined. Meanwhile, the article Migration of Agrarian Labour Force and the Theory of Disguised Equilibrium, by Yasusuke Murakami and Machiko Kubo argues that agriculture still occupies an important place in the Japanese economy and though non-capitalistic in a sense, it coexists with the capitalistic sectors. The equilibrium between agricultural labour and non-agricultural labours must be sought in the comparison of per capita agricultural income and per capita non-agricultural wages. Moreover, the paper The Representative Firm and the Theory of Value, by V. Dubby is an attempt to show that the concept of the representative firm is not only useful for exposition but a tool with analytical significance. The technique of using the representative firm to derive the long-period supply curve of the industry is here developed in two steps. First, it is assumed that the relation of the price to the average cost of the representative firm determines the variation in the size of the industry. Second, a relationship between the average cost of the representative firm and the output of the industry is established.

The article presents a case to measure labor productivity by considering some examples from Indian nitrogen fertilizer manufacture. In a manpower planning exercise carried out with reference to the Indian nitrogen fertilizer industry, a cross-sectional comparison of average productivity of labor (APL) is used by enterprise in the year 1965-66 as a basis for forecasting the future size of the labor force. As a wealth of data got accumulated it became obvious how many economic, statistical and technological snares had to be circumvented in order to make a significant comparison possible. Since the alternative measures of APL can all be quantified with great accuracy in this case, it was felt that the large differentials between them--and therefore the dangers inherent in using an unsophisticated measure--were of interest to a much wider circle than Indian industrial planners. The article presents the results of this exercise. There are six enterprises in this study: FACT, Sindri, Nangal, Ennore, Trombay and Neyveli. Between them they made up 82.6 per cent of nitrogen nutrient manufacturing capacity in India in 1966.

Provides information on a study that examined the economic and institutional aspects of the Indian approach to the promotion of small enterprises and industrial subcontracting. Discussion on the role of small enterprises and subcontracting in increasing employment and economizing capital; Comparison to the capital/labor, capital/output and output/labor ratios noted in Japanese enterprises; Recommendations.

This article focuses on the existence in India of a rather unusual type of industrial organization known as the managing agency system. It focuses on the legal aspects of the managing agency system. It argues that the whole system of company law in India, like the organization of commercial banking, is simply irrelevant. It is suggested that the managing agency system is the Indian answer to the challenge of relative backwardness which characterized the economic scene in India. The managing agency system is a type of industrial organization in which the promotion, finance, and administration of one or more independent companies are controlled by a single company. Both public and private limited joint stock companies as well as partnership undertakings are controlled by managing agency firms. Managing agency firms may take the organizational form of either a partnership, private or public limited company, or a single person. It is extremely important to understand the nature of the managing agency firm and its relation to the controlled company.