The Structure of Production: New Revised Edition

By Mark Skousen

Book Overview

In 2014, the U. S. government adopted a new quarterly statistic called gross output (GO), the most significance advance in national income accounting since gross domestic product (GDP) was developed in the 1940s. The announcement came as a triumph for Mark Skousen, who advocated GO nearly 25 years ago as an essential macroeconomic tool and a better way to measure the economy and the business cycle. Now it has become an official statistic issued quarterly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis at the U. S. Department of Commerce.

In this new revised edition of Structure of Production, Skousen shows why GO is a more accurate and comprehensive measure of the economy because it includes business-to-business transactions that move the supply chain along to final use. (GDP measures the value of finished goods and services only, and omits B-to-B activity.) GO is an attempt to measure spending at all stages of production. Using GO, Skousen demonstrates that the supply-side of the business spending is far more important than consumer spending, is more consistent with economic growth theory, and a better measure of the business cycle.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1479848522
• ISBN13: 9781479848522
• Release Date: September 2015
• Publisher: New York University Press
• Length: 417 Pages
• Weight: 1.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Understandable and thought provoking

Skousen's explanation of the workings of the economy in terms of the 'aggregate production structure' is, in his own words,' a complete general description of economic activity, taking into account aggregate demand at every level or stage of production (p 364). This fascinating book helps to explain, in simple terms, how the economy works and attempts to come to grips with various aspects of interrelated micro and macro concepts;tying them all together to provide a logical and realistic system of economics. Does he succeed? I still have many questions. And some he himself have been highlighted in the closing chapter on 'The Future of Economic Research'. But what the author does is turn our attention to the important role of capital in the structure of production, and the effects of various monetary policy on this structure. Now the author does much more, but to my mind, these are the two most important contributions that he has made. Skousen also highlights, through his painstaking examination of various authors and theories, that economic development and wealth are only created through due attention to the capital section of an economy. There is no quick way to national development. In doing so, he domolishes the Keynesian allusion that we can 'consume' our way to prosperity- either as a policy of 'national growth' or as a solution to a recession. This book is a must for the serious economics reader. It is readable and understandable. There is no maths and some graphs which are well explained. But there is plenty of is good, solid, verbal economic analysis. Buy this book and you won't be disappointed!