This paper examines the evolution of the supermarket industry, from the birth of the chain store concept in the early 1900s to the recent rise of the Wal-Mart supercenter. The central message is that the major themes relevant today (the importance of scale and standardization, technological...

Recent econometric analyses of growth in industrialized countries reveal that energy?s elasticity of production systematically exceeds its factor cost share, whereas for labor the opposite holds. The paper reviews these analyses that reflect the observed direction of technological change towards...