Abstract
This chapter is a statistical analysis of factors that account for the change in average weekly plant hours from 1929 to 1976. Using the detailed industry as the unit of observation, the analysis focuses on long-run rather than cyclical influences. The chapter begins with a discussion of the theory of shift work. The theory that has developed applies to the individual firm under static conditions, but it has applicability to long-run changes. Partly on the basis of the theory, this study analyzes variations in average weekly plant hours by industry in 1976 and 1929 and then takes up industry changes over time.
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Notes
Robin Marris, The Economics of Capital Utilization (Cambridge University Press, 1964).
See, for example, Gordon C. Winston, “Capital Utilization in Economic Development,” Economie Journal, vol. 81, no. 321 (March 1971), pp. 36–60: and Roger R. Betancourt and Christopher K. Clague, “An Economie Analysis of Capital Utilization,” Southern Economie Journal, vol. 42, no. 1 (July 1975), pp. 69–78. Fuller listings appear in the bibliography.
Marris, The Economics of Capital Utilization, pp. 80–92.
Roger R. Betancourt and Christopher K. Clague, “An Econometric Analysis of Capital Utilization,” International Economic Review, vol. 19, no. 1 (February 1978), p. 219.
Jorgenson and Griliches noted the lack of an explicit theory of capital utilization. See “Issues in Growth Accounting: A Reply to Edward F. Denison,” Survey of Current Business, vol. 52, no. 5 (May 1972), part II. I understand that Betancourt and Clague have developed a growth model that embodies utilization in their forthcoming book.
Betancourt and Clague, “An Economic Analysis of Capital Utilization,” pp. 69–78.
Daniel Creamer, Sergei Dobrovolsky, and Israel Borenstein, Capital in Manufacturing and Mining. Its Formation and Financing (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press for National Bureau of Economic Research, 1960).
Electricity is used in factories for driving motors, for lighting, for heat-treating furnaces, in electrochemical processes, and for space heating and cooling. For most industries, however, driving motors is by far the most important use. For a fuller discussion of this use of electricity consumption, see Murray F. Foss, “The Utilization of Capital Equipment,” Survey of Current Business, vol. 43, no. 6 (June 1963). Total electricity consumed in 1929 was obtained by adding to the data on purchased electricity by industry, published in the 1929 Census of Manufactures, estimates of electricity generated by the plant itself. Data for 1929 on electricity generated by manufacturing plants were collected in the 1929 census but were never published. I used the (blownup) sample of the 1929 census to obtain ratios of purchased electricity to total electricity consumed by industry and then used those ratios with published data on purchased electricity to obtain total electricity consumed by industry. Strictly speaking, an allowance should be made for electricity generated by the plant and sold to outsiders, but such information was not collected in 1929. Since the pronounced increase in the price of electricity starting in 1974, manufacturing plants have taken steps to economize on electricity consumption, so that the use of kilowatt-hours as a proxy for machine hours may have suffered. To this extent the 1976 ratios of kilowatt-hours to man-hours may be distorted. Because only a few years are involved (1974 through 1976), the changes from 1929 to 1976 are probably not affected very much.
See especially Charles W. O’Connor, “Late-Shift Employment in Manufacturing Industries,” Monthly Labor Review, vol. 93, no. 11 (November 1970), pp. 37–42.
Edward F. Denison, Accounting for United States Economic Growth 1929–1969 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1974).
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, State Labor Laws for Women, Bulletin of the Women’s Bureau, No. 156, 1938, pp. 3–6.
O’Connor, “Late-Shift Employment,” p. 42, fn. 5.
This fits in with Scitovsky’s point that entrepreneurs are not solely profits maximizers but may also be affected by considerations of leisure. See T. Scitovsky, “A Note on Profit Maximization and Its Implications,” Review Of Economic Studies, vol. 11 (1943), pp. 57–60.I am indebted to Mickey Levy of the American Enterprise Institute for calling this to my attention.
Richard Freeman and James Medoff, “New Estimates of Private Sector Unionism in the United States,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 32, no. 2 (January 1979).
Frederick Mueller and James Nix, “Premium Pay: An Analysis of Industrial Practices,” Monthly Labor Review (August 1951), pp. 148–151.
Albert Rees, The Economics of Work and Pay, 2d ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 29.
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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Foss, M.F. (1997). Reasons for Changes in Average Weekly Plant Hours from 1929 to 1976. In: Shiftwork, Capital Hours and Productivity Change. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6201-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-6201-6_6
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