4
vanced countries, however, the decline in the capital-
coefficient with size seems predominant.
There are certain general factors which act in the opposite
direction; An increase in scale (and consequently, markets)
involves additional investment in transport and communica
tion, power, etc., in shorty an infra-structure increasing
disproportionately more than the firm's capacity. The burden
of this investment is, however, ordinarily not borne by the
firms, but for the greater part by governments, although
to some extent large concerns do provide such infra
structure investment, (for example power stations etc.'j
themselves.
This tentative picture of the problem can now be related to
the historical development of the capital coefficient as it
appears to most economists nowadays; The impression is
that the capital-output ratio for society as a whole has
remained roughly the same over the decades. L/ From the
comparison of scale one might have expected it to decline
since large aawr: firms have tended to replace small ones
In so far as this v
with the advance of technology, it did noty might bepartly
due to the above mentioned factor (increasing infra-
measured ^art cpnt»val<:c-j~-liaf lated-'-wtthr
^Simon Kuznets, Capital in the American Economy. Princeton
1961. Table 6, p. 80