This paper suggests an approach to analyzing the determinants of changes in industrial prices which provides a bridge between the broad macro perspectives of the Walrasian approach and the narrowly focussed micro approach of traditional demand and supply analysis. The analytical usefulness of...

Attention is directed first to the external as well as the internal contexts within which prospective innovations are evaluated. Turning to the actual decision-making processes, a review of the evaluational bases for decision is followed by consideration of how these lead to actual decisions and...

Most evaluations of forecasts have hitherto been primarily based on measure of statistical accuracy. Attention is drawn to the need for concentrating instead on the forecast components bearing on managerial decisions and on the economic effects of such decisions. The method suggested highlights...

A commonly held view is that innovation, deriving directly from expenditure on research and development, brings increased productivity, lower costs, increased profitability and growth, and that these relationships form a economically virtuous circle. However, this view is not supported either by...

Technological advances have come to be recognized as probably the most important sources of economic progress, including the productivity and competitive strength of industries, growth in national income and gains both in standards of living and in military security. It has become increasingly...

After calling attention to some misleading conceptions of the industrial sectors facing increasing challenges from abroad, the analysis highlights the primary sources of recent shortcomings in the competitiveness of major industries in the US and in some other long industrialized economies....

A comprehensive study of expected and actual industry growth patterns has suggested that a number of shortcomings in statistical forecasting derive from the role of "backcasting" in widely used methods of estimating probable future adjustment paths. After examining attendant problems and the...

Past studies of the economic effects of innovation have been based on inadequate conceptual foundations and their findings may therefore be invalid. In particular, too superficial and too narrow a view has been taken of the impact of innovation on inputs, outputs and production flows. The author...

On the basis of extensive empirical research, this discussion reviews: first, the need to modify numerous widely prevailing expectations covering the economic effects of technological innovations; second, some of the specific errors commonly made in estimating the prospective benefits of...

This paper describes a case study in the application of a productivity analysis model in a plant producing industrial gases. Although the process is a relatively simple one, several inputs (labour, electricity, capital and some materials) and several outputs (liquid and gaseous oxygen, gaseous...