The Capacity Concept and Induced Investment

In: Canadian journal of economics and political science: the journal of the Canadian Political Science Association = Revue canadienne d'économique et de science politique, Band 21, Heft 2, S. 190-203

Abstract

According to the principle of acceleration, net induced investment is proportional to the rate of increase in national product. The principle is usually qualified by a statement to the effect that if the economy's production is at a rate lower than some previous peak, the proportionality may not hold. Once, however, capacity is reached, increases in the rate of production will induce investment.This paper derives its relevance from the current attempts to construct a set of dynamic input-output equations which will generate demand for additional stocks of capital facilities on the basis of a set of capital coefficients and measures of capacity for the "industries" of the system. The basic arguments set forth are applicable also to tests for the feasibility of solutions of static input-output systems with respect to existing stocks of capital, but most attention will be directed to the dynamic formulation.Professor Leontief's dynamic input-output equations are of the form:Xi represents the rate of output of the ith industry, Yi is the amount of this output taken by the autonomous final demand sector and aik is the now familiar coefficient of production, the amount of the ith industry's product which the kth industry purchases per unit of output of the kth industry. This much of the equation set is identical to the static input-output system. The dynamic addition is in the bik capital coefficients, which measure the amount of stock of the ith industry's product held by the kth industry per unit of annual output, and in the values, which are the first derivatives of the annual rates of output of the various industries with respect to time. The capital coefficients are accelerator values for each industry with respect to all other industries. The summated value,is the instantaneous annual rate of induced investment for the economy at any given moment of time.