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...

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...

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...

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....