Energy and the economy— A reply to Smil and Kuz

In the June 1976 edition of this journal Smil and Kuz discussed the case for saying that there are quite firm relationships between energy consumption and GDP. They argued broadly that there was no general relationship, but, instead, the individual countries are locked into individual patterns of energy consumption. The proponents of the ‘there is a relationship’ school of thought include the author of this reply who is employed in the Economics and Programmes Branch of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority.     

A framework of decision making for technological change

The first article in this series2 drew a distinction between the costs of line operations- or current outputs—and those costs devoted to investment, or future outputs. As investment encompasses technological change—in practice it is dominated by it—this article examines some of the broader issues underlying decisions to invest and describes in outline a study being made of the economic criteria that are relevant to such decisions. In the longer term the objective is to develop a procedure or framework of criteria to assist the process of decision making; and this would include a frame of reference—a set of statistical time-series and analyses designed for the purpose.     

Innovation as the source of long term economic growth

This paper concerns some economic aspects of innovation particularly as the source of long term growth. Economic history supplies many examples of the rejuvenation of economies which, at various points in time, could legitimately have been considered ‘ageing’. The author asks ‘Could Britain's turn come now?’     

On the number of separable partitions

Consider partitions of a given set A of n distinct points in general position in ℝ ^d into parts where each pair of parts can be separated by a hyperplane that contains a given set of points E. We consider the problem of counting and generating all such partitions (correcting a classic 1967 result of Harding about the number of such partitions into two parts). Applications of the result to partition problems are presented.     

Severity of illness: red herring or horse of different color? Part 2.

In this continuation of his article, the author defines severity and acuity of illness and discusses approaches to the measurement of the two factors. He provides some background on severity of illness measures that are in current use and prepares for a discussion of the uses of these measures.     

The geometry of implementation: a necessary and sufficient condition for straightforward games

 We characterize games which induce truthful revelation of the players’ preferences, either as dominant strategies (straightforward games) or in Nash equilibria. Strategies are statements of individual preferences on R ⁿ . Outcomes are social preferences. Preferences over outcomes are defined by a distance from a bliss point. We prove that g is straightforward if and only if g is locally constant or dictatorial (LCD), i.e., coordinate-wise either a constant or a projection map locally for almost all strategy profiles. We also establish that: (i) If a game is straightforward and respects unanimity, then the map g must be continuous, (ii) Straightforwardness is a nowhere dense property, (iii) There exist differentiable straightforward games which are non-dictatorial. (iv) If a social choice rule is Nash implementable, then it is straightforward and locally constant or dictatorial. Received: 30 December 1994/Accepted: 22 April 1996