International trade

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1758394757

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136209

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Taussig, Frank William http://d-nb.info/gnd/120199459

Title:: International trade

Place of publication:: New York, NY

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: XXI, 425 Seiten; graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part I. Theory

Collection:: Economics Books

VARYING COSTS; DIMINISHING RETURNS 81 differences in managerial capacity. The reason why some estab- lishments, for example, are better located than others is at bottom the same as that why some are better organized than others: the managers are more shrewd and capable. And these more capable managers get a differential return analogous to rent. It is analo- gous to economic rent, that is, in industries where there is nothing which could in strictness be called a monopoly — where there is no control of supply in any single hand, but a free field for all who care to enter. The phenomenon differs from that of economic rent, however, in that these powers of superior productiveness are transferable. The abler business man is not bound to any industry or any field. He roams at large, turning his faculties in whatever direction he finds they tell most profitably. The case is otherwise with land and natural agents. If a landowner finds his differential gain lessened, he must accept the situation once for all and submit to the loss. To some extent he can indeed turn the land to one crop or another ; but the possibilities of such shifts are limited, and they mean, not that loss is avoided, but only that it is perhaps made smaller. The landowner cannot transfer the superior powers of his acres to other acres or to a manufacturing industry. The superior business manager, however, if he finds that his powers are exer- cised with less effect in one industry than another, turns from the less profitable to the more profitable. It is true that a superior business man may secure ordinary profits (i.e. non-superior profits) in an industry which would yield no profits at all to the non-superior business man. Tho he engage in an industry which possesses no comparative advantage of the sort that has been illustrated and discussed in these pages, he may succeed, notwithstanding the absence of advantage, in making both ends meet and even in clearing a profit for himself. But he cannot clear as much for himself as he could in industries adapted to the general industrial advantages of the country. And the superior business man will not ordinarily turn to the ill-adapted industries. One of the signs of superiority is the very fact that he has an eye for the more promising possibilities. He sees better than most what is

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