A NEW STAGE IN THE ACTIVITIES O F THE COUNCIL FOR MUTUAL ECONOMIC ASSISTANCE IN THE FIELD O F INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS OF NATIONAL PRODUCT

This article reports on the plans of the member countries of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) in the area of the purchasing power parity comparisons of national product and similar aggregates. A series of comparisons of the U.S.S.R. with other individual member countries was made for 1959,1966, and 1973. A new series will be undertaken for the year 1978. The scope of the program will be expanded to cover several new aggregates, including productivity concepts and total consumption of the population. The article discusses the conceptual and methodological problems and plans. Among other matters, attention is being given to the possibility of reducing the number of specifications priced, without sacrificing accuracy.     

Dynamism and development

In industrialized countries, the human needs and purposes to be served by science and technology are increasingly subject to greater social control. People in developing countries are also preoccupied with controlling choices in the development and application of technology - and the priceless ingredient in controlling their own destiny.The encounter between the more and less dynamic societies makes developing countries the targets of an ‘information bombardment’. Science, technology, values and organization - the ‘active ingredients’ in development - are all forms of information (a resource that is not merely renewable but expandable). The capacity of indigenous people to understand and manipulate the information flow - linking science (‘know what’) and technology (‘know-how’) to human values (‘know why’) and social authority and organization (‘know who’) - is consequently the key to the dynamics of ‘development’.     

Design and estimation problems when estimating a regression coefficient from survey data

Summary The values of a variablex are assumed known for all elements in a finite population. Between this variable and another variableY, whose values are registered in a sample survey, there is the usual linear regression relationship. This paper considers problems of design and of estimation of the regression coefficienta and the interceptb. The followingGodambe type theorem is proved: There exists no minimum variance unbiased linear estimator ofa andb. We also derive that the usual estimators ofa andb have minimum variance if attention is restricted to the class of linear estimators unbiased in any given sample.     

An approach to intertemporal equilibrium with production

Conclusion This paper is devoted to considering the implications of intertemporal economic equilibrium in a model with production. To this end, a differential game with a Leontief technology is formulated. In the two-person zero-sum game, it was found that an intertemporal equilibrium is feasible. Furthermore, it was found to be decentralizable, with a required informational exchange mechanism no more onerous than in other decentralized procedures, including the tatonnement processes.In the non-zero-sum case decentralization is impossible for closed loop solutions. The interaction of the strategy sets introduces externalities even when production technology is convex. Finally, while a Nash solution is guaranteed, Pareto optimality requires a two-stage optimization approach.This paper was presented at the International Conference of the Atlantic Economic Society held in Vienna, Austria, May 10–18, 1979.     

Migration and manpower needs in the Middle East and North Africa, 1975-85

The authors review current flows and expected changes in the volume and characteristics of international labor migration to eight oil-producing Middle East countries. The implications for both labor-exporting and importing countries are explored     

The influence of the school of business on the values of its students

This study indicates that schools of business influence the personal values of their students. Current management education produces individuals who have ego-centered rather than society or other-centered values. Given this framework the authors raise the question, “Do business schools produce the type of manager that is needed in the future?”