Economic essays

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Static economics and business forecasting / Benjamin M. Anderson, Jr.

Collection:: Economics Books

STATIC ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS FORECASTING 7 static doctrine. The forces governing the international move- ments of goods, for example, the forces governing the international movements of gold, the larger laws of the balance of trade and of the international balance of indebtedness—static theory has gone far in explaining these things. Static theory has analyzed the conditions which make certain factors of production easily mobile while others are fixed or relatively immobile. One of the most significant of the generalizations of the static economist has been that worked out by J. B. Say and beautifully stated in English by J. E. Cairnes—the doctrine that there can be no such thing as a general overproduction, the doctrine that consumption and production grow together, and that increasing production leads to increasing consumption—so long as the pro- portions of industry are kept right. That there can be over- production in particular lines the doctrine grants—too much of one thing produced and too little of another. Particular over- production can, moreover, demoralize the whole economic fabric and force general reaction and disorder. But business can be counted on to go on steadily so long as equilibrium is maintained. Wheat comes into the market as supply of wheat. Well and good. But the wheat produced constitutes demand for silk, for sugar, for automobiles, for other things that the wheat pro- ducer wants. That is why he is producing wheat. Silk comes into the market as supply of silk, but also as demand for other commodities which the silk producer wants. And so with every other commodity—it is supply of its own kind, but it is demand for other things. And therefore, in the aggregate, supply and demand are not merely equal; they are identical, since every commodity may be looked upon as supply or demand.” Conclusions on all of these topics have much to do with the problems in which the business forecaster is interested or ought to be interested. And yet practical business men and practical students of business forecasting for the most part either have not studied this static theory at all, or else after trying to study it, ! This brief statement involves a use of the terms, demand and supply, which does not fit into our conceptions of demand and supply as expressed in the modern curves, which involve the idea of money and a fixed value of money. (Cf. my Value of Money, Chapter II.) If it were necessary for the purposes of the present article to be particularly precise in my reference to specific doctrines, I should want to reformulate this, but it is adequate for present purposes to state the doctrine in the way in which Cairnes states it.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Economic essays

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation