SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L’ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC. 
wis 
example. 
I presume education does include science and scientific 
research. 
DORFMAN 
[ am afraid that I think that it would strain the conventional 
meaning of « education » to use that word to include science and 
scientific research. The promotion of science and scientific research 
is, of course, an important function of government. These activities 
do have important external economies. The discoverer of an im- 
portant scientific truth cannot usually retain the benefits of his dis- 
covery even by means of a patent system. This kind of external 
economy, however, is sufficiently different from an external eco- 
nomy of consumption, as exemplified by the benefits to society of 
having its members better housed and better educated, so that it 
is best to deal with them separately and not to combine science 
and scientific research with education for analytic purposes 
MAHALANOBIS 
I meant when education is treated as an item of external eco- 
nomies, I simply enquired whether science would be included as 
an essential part. 
Another point on p. 5 is a practical one. In para g I agree that 
governments may invest in uneconomic enterprises with the inten: 
tion of enhancing the prestige of the nation, which would be undesir 
able. Steel plants are sometimes mentioned as prestigeous but une- 
conomic enterprises. Although I have been trying for a long time, 
I have not found any adequate discussion of the circumstances in 
which the setting up of a steel plant would be economic and proper. 
I could well imagine that a very small country like Panama should 
not do so. But it would be extremely useful to find out in specific 
cases, for example, for Ceylon which has rather a small population 
3 
Dorfman - pag. 29