Strategy for Combating Recession: Action

• Author: William H. Kolberg
• Date: 01 October 1982
• Published date: 01 October 1982
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1982.tb03049.x

Indicators 437

point only if there is sign agreement between SW, and SOQ/dX,). Because both the magnitude

and the signs of the SOQ/^X,) are unknown it is impossible to make even ptobabilistic state-

ments about the conditions under which sign agreement can be expected.

50.

This contention has been made, for example, by Liu, Quality of Life tndicators, p. v;

Smith, pp. 6-8, and Alice M. Rivlin, Systematic Thinking for Sociat Action (Washington, D.C.:

The Brookings Institution, 1971), pp.

46—51.

51.

Liu, Quatity of Life

Jndicators,

pp. 1^—11.

52.

Seidman, p. 103.

53.

A. J. Wickens, "Statistics and the Public Interest," Journal of the American Statistical

Animation, No. 48(195}), pp. 1-4.

54.

See Sherwin Rosen, "Wage-based Indexes of Urban Quality of Life," in Current tssues

in Urban

Economics,

ed. Peter Mieszkowski and Mahlon Straszhem (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

Univ. Press, 1979), pp. 74-104; and Jennifer Roback, "The Price of Local Amenities: Theory

and Measurement," Center Discussion Paper No. 395, Economic Growth Center, Yale Univer-

sity.

Strategy for Combating

Recession:

Action

WE LEARNED in June, 1982 that the nation's highest unemployment rate was

right here in Michigan, in Flint with its 23.2 percent jobless rate. Meanwhile

in Stamford, Connecticut, with a quite different industrial and employment

emphasis, the rate is a healthy 3.9 percent. Even if, as we all hope, the

automobile industry were to make a swift turnaround in the next few months,

the prospects for many unemployed auto workers are dim. This is due to the

growing tendency to move from blue collar to iron collar workers, from

human to machine.

Surely it makes sense to train for the kinds of opportunities this trend

represents—to retrain those who have been dislocated, and also those cur-

rently working in clearly declining industries. And to train the structurally

unemployed, as well.

Questions [about counter depression strategy] are as timely as the unem-

ployment data showing the vast difference between Flint and Stamford. That

they are also of fundamental importance can be seen in the clear evidence

supporting the wisdom of investment in human capital.

One-fifth of the increase in output per worker—productivity—between

1948 and 1966 stems directly from investment in education and training.

And, ofthe smaller productivity gain between 1973 and 1978, no less than

three-quarters can be attributed to such human capital investment.

Between 1963 and 1975 the tJnited States, once the arsenal of know-how,

dropped from second to seventh place among industrialized nations in the

skill endowment of its workforce. Meanwhile the tJ.S. share of the world's