Volume 1
Introduction ix
Introduction to Economic Forces at Work (Ronald H. Coase) xvii
Principles of Professional Advancement xxi
PART 1 UNCERTAINTY AND INFORMATION COSTS
Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic Theory 3
Biological Analogies in the Theory of the Firm: Comment 18
Review of The Investment Decision 22
The Meaning of Utility Measurement 26
Information Costs, Pricing and Resource Unemployment 53
What Is the Best System? 78
Market Value Effects of Take-Overs? An All-or-Nothing 106
Tender of Conjectures
(Armen A. Alchian, Henry Manne, and Susan Woodward)
Information, Martingales and Prices 113
Why Money? 123
Trading Stamps (Armen A. Alchian and Benjamin Klein) 132
There Really Is a Free Service 143
Why Brand Names? 148
The Chef, Gourmet and Gourmand 151
PART 2 COST
Costs and Outputs 161
Cost 180
Reliability of Progress Curves in Airframe Production 202
PART 3 THE SOURCE AND MEASUREMENT OF INFLATION
On a Correct Measure of Inflation 225
(Armen A. Alchian and Benjamin Klein)
Be Wary of the CPI Commission Report! 248
(Armen A. Alchian and Harold M. Somers)
There’s Only 1 Cause for Inflation 249
Problems of Rising Prices 253
PART 4 EFFECTS OF INFLATION
Effects of Inflation (Reuben A. Kessel and Armen A. Alchian) 277
Redistribution of Wealth Through Inflation 301
(Armen A. Alchian and Reuben A. Kessel)
More Evidence on Inflation-Caused Wealth Redistribution 314
(Armen A. Alchian and Reuben A. Kessel)
Inflation and Distribution of Income and Wealth 381
Effects of Inflation upon Stock Prices 397
(Armen A. Alchian and Reuben A. Kessel)
How the Government Gains from Inflation 405
(Armen A. Alchian and Reuben Kessel)
The Meaning and Validity of the Inflation-Induced Lag 414
of Wages Behind Prices (Reuben A. Kessel and Armen A. Alchian)
Real Wages in the North During the Civil War: 442
Mitchell’s Data Reinterpreted
(Reuben A. Kessel and Armen A. Alchian)
PART 5 PRICE CONTROLS
Review of the Council of Economic Advisers’ 1972 Report: 467
A Comment
An Introduction to Confusion 477
Abbott and Costello in Washington 495
There’s Gas in Your Future 504
Oil Decontrol Windfall: Magical or Real? 509
Energy Economics 513
It’s Easy to End Gas Shortage 517
To Be Fair, Let Each Solve His Own Fuel Crisis 521
PART 6 SEMANTICS AND METHODS
The Economics of Power 527
Summary Notes on Misleading Economic Jargon 537
Words: Musical or Meaningful? 549
Rent 586
Allocative Efficiency with Edgeworth-Bowley Boxes 594
The Rate of Interest, Fisher’s Rate of Return over Costs 612
and Keynes’ Internal Rate of Return
Linear Progress Curves Are Illusions 619
Linear Progress Curves Are Not Illusions 623
Why the Learning Curve Is Convex on Double Log Scale 626
Review of Dynamic Equipment Policy 630
Meanings and Uses of Equations and Models 635
Review of Essays in Economics and Econometrics: 645
A Volume in Honor of Harold Hotelling
Economic Replacement Policy 649
1. Introduction 657
2. Elements of the Replacement Problem 664
3. Mathematical Formulation 672
4. Specific Assumptions, Forecasts, and Computations 680
5. Illustration of Procedure 691
6. Some Issues Common to All Applications 707
Appendixes (abridged) 715
Analysis Procedures 725
20. Principles of Statistical Analysis 727
21. Univariate Analysis 736
22. Bivariate Analysis 756
23. Multivariate Analysis 785
Authors Cited 803
Subject Index 807