Small and Big Business

Steindl, Josef

Bibliographic data

Works

Document type:: Works

Collection:: Josef Steindl Collection

Title:: Small and Big Business: Introduction [2nd revision]

Author:: Steindl, Josef

Scope:: Typoskript, 21 Blätter, mit Hilfe von Tipp-Ex korrigierte Version

Year of publication:: 1978

Source material date:: [04.1978]

Language:: English

Description:: Several decades after the first publication of this little book I do not find myself in full agreement with everything it contains. Since I have no time to re-write it completely I better leave it as it stands and try to explainin the following what amendemnts I should have liked to make. (Auszug, S. 1)

Note:: Das Typoskript stellt die 2. revidierte bzw. korrigierte Fassung der 1972 neu verfassten Einleitung zu "Small and Big Business" (1945) dar. Vermutlich zwecks der spanischen Ausgabe des Buches verfasst.

Related work:: Steindl, Josef: Economic Papers 1941-88. London: Macmillan, 1990 Steindl, Josef: Small and Big Business. Economic Problems of the Size of Firms. Oxford: Blackwell, 1945

Topic:: Firm and market structure

JEL Classification:: D24 [Production, Cost, Capital, Capital, Total Factor, and Multifactor Productivity, Capacity] D43 [Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection] L11 [Production, Pricing, and Market Structure, Size Distribution of Firms]

Shelfmark:: S/M.3.11

Access:: Free access

3 -scaled of where x denotes /capacity, a a constant and b the so-called scale factor which according to the above reasoning should be around 2/3; in practice it takes different values for different kind of plant, in most cases rather lower than one, the difference indicating the amount of the economies of scale. The scale factor b is much used in practice by engineers making estimates of the cost of equipment. According to the engineering data, automation also decreases the capital coefficient, increasing at the same time the scale of production. This is partly explained by continuous running in three shifts, but more basically by the continuity of utilisation inherent in the technique itself. All this is not to say that the capital-coefficient never increases with size. In fact, there are cases when it must so increase: for example large units (of presses etc.) are used even though they increase the capital coefficient and yield a lower return on most ordinary jobs, because certain jobs cannot be performed at all without the very large equipment. Again, the capital-coefficient will depend inter alia on prices of equipment and wages. In development countries where modern large scale equipment is imported the price relations may cause the capital coefficient to be quite different from 3) what has been quoted above. In advanced countries, however, 3) This may partly explain data given by A.K.Sen: Choice of Techniques. Oxford 1960 (Appendix C) and G.K. Boon: Economic Choice of Human and Physical Factors in Production. Amsterdam 1964.

Works

Cite and reuse

Works

Image

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation