Wassily Leontief - Böcker

The only comprehensive introduction which Leontief has written to his model of Input-Output Economics, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1972. Many of the chapters have already appeared as articles in journals, but Leontief's writings have a range and consistency that gives this collection a sense of coherence.The book begin with non-technical articles on the theory of Input-Output Economics and progresses to more technical essays, and then to specific applications of the theory. This edition has been thoroughly revised, at least one third of the material being new.

While the computer revolution has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, it has threatened as many other jobs with obsolescence and has often caused the displacement of workers by computer-based machines. Here, Nobel Prize-winning economist Wassily Leontief and Faye Duchin use the input-output approach, a method that has been widely applied in examining structural economic change, to analyze the complex issues surrounding the impact of computer-driven automationon employment. Following a general discussion of the impact of automation on employment, they focus on four specific sectors within the economy--manufacturing, office work, education, and health care.The input-output approach makes it possible to draw conclusions regarding both overall employment and the prospects for individual occupations. Taking account of the increased need for workers in the production of computer-based equipment, the authors conclude that by the year 2000 automation will not cause dramatic unemployment if the economy is able to achieve a smooth transition from the old to new technologies.

This is a volume of papers organized by Professor Leontief for the 1976 meeting of the Economics section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. After a paper by Professor Leontief applying input-output to the future of the world economy, other papers consider prices, regional problems, material supplies, urban problems, technical progress, unemployment and energy policy. There are two papers with a broader view of the British economy, one surveying government policy on the industrial structure of the economy and one considering the use of input-output for monitoring the development of the economy.

This work comprises the major papers of this extraordinary Nobel Laureate in economics. The common concern of the papers included in this volume is economic theory, its structure, uses, and abuses. As the late Harry G. Johnson said: "No one reading this volume can fail to be struck by the depth of scholarship Professor Leontief is capable of deploying and the profundity of his understanding of methodological problems of economic theory, and his critique of the work of other economists."