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The article examines some of the measurement problems which affected the study of optimal scale in physician practice and the relative efficiency of solo versus group practices through a survivor analysis. It was observed that the optimal size distribution of medical practice based on private costs and benefits will have more groups in the size ranges determined to be most efficient at the margin and less physicians in solo practice. It is also possible that optimal practice situations have more prepaid groups and more multispecialty groups.

The article presents a comment on an article titled, Metropolitan Interpersonal Income Inequality, written by Barbara B. Murray. She considers the extent of intra-urban income inequality and the factors explaining differences in inequality among metropolitan areas. Professor Murray hypothesizes that income level, size, and regional characteristics consisting of racial composition, rural-urban population proportions, and industry mix, explain variance in inequality over the units. By direct comparison of rank orderings, correlates are found between income inequality and each of the individual determinants. The choice of analytical technique, however, precludes the possibility of assessing the importance of the determinants in affecting inequality or the a planatory power of any single determinant in relation to any other determinant. The purpose of this comment is to supply additional empirical evidence, which largely supports Professor Murray's findings, and to amplify the economic causes underpinning the observed relationships.