The machine tool industry is tiny but crucial: it supplies the machines to cut, form, and shape metals upon which about half of the manufacturing industries are dependent. The state of the art of the machine tools themselves, their control systems and the organization surrounding them largely...

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This paper uses a simple model to explore the effects of "increasing demand risk" on business fixed investment. We show that within a putty-clay framework an increase in demand uncertainty can be expected to have two countervailing effects. On the one hand increasing risk tends to induce a firm...

This paper presents statistical evidence on (1) the importance of "soft" capital spending items like marketing and R&D investments, and (2) the dominant service content of production in the modern manufacturing firm. It pictures the firm as a dominantly information processing entity that has...

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What factors determine national differences in the size and industry distribution of employment? This study stresses the role of business taxation, employment security laws, credit market policies, wage-setting institutions and the size of the public sector. We characterize these aspects of the...