Book Reviews

• Published date: 01 September 1974
• DOI: 10.1177/0003603X7401900312
• Date: 01 September 1974
• Author: Corwin D. Edwards
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEWS 643

Betty Bock and

Jack

Farkas,

Relative Growth of the "Larg-

est" Manufacturing Corporations,

1947-1971:

Subsets

from an Unknown Set, New York: The Conference

Board

(1973), 86 pp., $10 ($2 associate and educational).

This pamphlet is a sequel to Statistical Games and the

"200

Largest" Industrials,

1954

and

1968,

which the Confer-

ence

Board

published in 1970.

It

begins with a clear analysis

of the character and limitations of the

data

available for

measuring concentration

at

the top of the industrial pyramid

in manufacturing, and with an account of the procedures

that

were used in coping with inadequacies in the

data-the

best

such exposition

that

I can recall seeing in such a study.

It

then presents

data

as to aggregate concentration of various

kinds.

In

general, the

data

consist of information for the

largest

50, the largest 100, and the

largest

200 manufactur-

ing corporations for the years

1947,

1958, 1967, and (so

far

as

data

are

available) 1971. The figures cover ratio of assets

to sales and concentration of assets, of sales, of value added

by manufacture,

and

of net profits. Comparisons

are

made

for subsets of the

largest

200 corporations. These compare

newcomer corporations with older ones; newcomers

that

en-

tered the 200 from below with newcomers

that

entered by re-

classification; and conglomerates with other corporations.

Because of limitations in the underlying information,

which

are

clearly described, the

data

are

not wholly com-

parable in character

and

in time-period.

For

example, some

contain unmeasurable distortions due to inclusion of figures

reflecting foreign as well as domestic operations,

but

the

data

about value added by manufacture

are

domestic only;

and some figures

are

available only

for

the three earlier dates,

while those for net profits

are

available for more numerous

dates ending in 1971.

The study ends with astatement

that

emphasizes the in-

correct character of broad generalizations about aggregate

concentration, unless they

are

derived from

data

explicitly