Energy and Organization: Growth and Distribution Reexamined

by Bernard C. Beaudreau

Overview

In the aftermath of the stock market crash, Irving Fisher pointed to the electrification of the U.S. industry as one of the underlying causes of the stock market boom. Earlier, in 1927, Brookings Institution economists had lamented the scant attention energy had received from economists. Today, some 60 years later, power remains the forgotten factor input. In this book, the author incorporates energy into the corpus of economic analysis. Unlike previous attempts, which were mostly theoretical, this work generates testable predictions. The result is a model of production based on the two universal factor inputs—broadly defined energy and broadly defined organization.

Once the model of production is developed, the book then tests an empirical model with data from U.S., German, and Japanese manufacturing. The results are used to reexamine the role of energy in productivity slowdown. When the empirically and theoretically correct model of production is used, the Solow residual disappears: growth in manufacturing value added is fully accounted for by growth in energy, capital, and labor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313305801
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/28/1998
Series:	Contributions in Economics and Economic History , #193
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

BERNARD C. BEAUDREAU is Associate Professor of Economics at Université Laval in Quebec City. He is the author of Mass Production, The Stock Market Crash, and the Great Depression: The Macroeconomics of Electrification (Greenwood, 1996).

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
A Conceptual Framework: Newtonian Production Analysis
Energy and Organization: The Historical Record
Newtonian Production Analysis: Evidence from U.S., German and Japanese Manufacturing
Energy, Growth Accounting and the Productivity Slowdown
A Theory of Income Distribution
The Kahn-Copithorne Hypothesis: Energy-Rent Sharing and Income Distribution
The Energy Crisis, Automation and Free-Trade
Automation, Off-Shore Production and the Future
The Macreconomic Consequences of Automation and Off-Shore Production
Conclusions
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Argues that the productivity slowdown, the ensuing move toward free trade at the global level, and what economist Jeremy Rifkin calls the end of work are the result of the oil crisis in the 1970s and early 1980s. Integrates classical mechanics, thermodynamics, mechanical engineering, production theory, and economics in general. The first of three books in which Beaudreau (economics, U. Laval, Quebec City) highlights the role of energy in general economic phenomena. the first contends that the shift to electric drive and its effects were responsible for the Smoot- Hawley Tariff Bill of 1929, the stock market boom and crash, the Great Depression, and the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933. The third will explore the role of energy in shaping the history of political economy. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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