The Organization and Retrieval of Economic Knowledge

In a significant sense it was Charles Kindleberger’s suggestion that I commission a paper for the Journal of Economic Literature on the card catalogue organizational system developed at the Institut für Weltwirtschaft Library in Kiel, FRG, which was the beginning of this Conference. I failed to find anyone willing to undertake the assignment but in the process I did visit Kiel twice. My reaction to the spectacular card catalogue was described in a brief Editor’s Note in the Journal of Economic Literature.¹

The paper, by a ‘consumer economist‘ discusses the use of libraries under four classifications: the personal library, the specialized library, the teaching library of a college or university, and the research library. In addition, it reflects briefly on the current problems of libraries ensuing from rising costs, increasing published materials, reduced budgets, etc. It gives the view of one who is not widely familiar with bibliographic aids, both literary and increasingly computerized, and concludes, perhaps erroneously, that such is the ambiguity in the words used by economists that it is unlikely that mechanical substitutes will be found for informal and personalized techniques, such as asking people who know a given field.

Of the hundreds of computer-readable bibliographic data bases in existence in the world today, indexing and abstracting services in the social sciences have only recently started making use of computers. This paper examines those services and systems directly relevant to economists. High cost of indexing and abstracting and lack of coordination among secondary services are two factors which hamper the growth of improved or new services. International sharing of resources (data banks and indexes) by means of computer networks appears to be the only reasonable approach to take-even in the short run.

A National Economic Information System (NEIS) is defined as having five elements: (I) computer systems; (2) a communications network; (3) software; (4) databanks; and (5) econometric models. The characteristics of each element are discussed, and the contributions of such systems to the various types of centres of economic analysis are indicated. It is concluded that timesharing computer technology does have particular benefits for economic analysis.

The efforts made in Brazil for the production of quantitative data for economic and social research are described as a case study on developing countries. A description of the current computer-based organization that is given to data collected in censuses and surveys is presented, together with the packages being developed for access to the organized information.

The article reports briefly on a survey of the attitudes of users of technical information systems—mainly scientific research workers in British industries—concerning their benefits from such systems. It reports a parallel study of a survey among economists in Scottish universities as well. In both cases, advanced information techniques are rated rather poorly as compared with more orthodox techniques. Some tentative inferences for policy are drawn from those results which encapsulate some 15 man-years of work. It is concluded that personal contact and follow up of references are of great importance in economics.

The cost of information, especially in its imprinted form, has been rising at an exponential rate for more than twenty-five years. This cost increase is coupled with a similar increase in the amount of material being produced and the number of users requesting it.

To meet the need for economic information, national and international co-ordination and co-operation are necessary. Within the whole spectrum of library and documentation activities, only the conditions for interlocking catalogues, with a view to networking and interaction, are described in this paper. The existing cataloguing rules and classification scheme for alphabetical and subject cataloguing are discussed, in general, and from the aspect of effective international co-operation and cataloguing. The author mentions the present international activities and plans, including NATIS, in the library and information field. He discusses the advantages and disadvantages of alternative prospects for interlocking cataloguing in economics.

The State University of New York is a multicampus university which, in response to the fiscal and operational problems which are facing higher education, is developing a library network. Proposals to increase the cost efficiency and cost effectiveness of the libraries are made, and some of the unknown elements, including library output measurement, collection size formulae, and the balance of emphasis between the collection or archival and user service functions are discussed.

Except for the introduction of the photocopying machine, there have been no significant developments in library operations for nearly a century. Libraries are highly labour-intensive organizations, with salaries and wages constituting between 50 to 60 per cent of their expenditures. Because of a lack of increase in productivity of library staffs, the per-unit rate of rise of costs in academic libraries in the United States averaged six per cent per year in the two decades following 1950, whereas, during the same period, the wholesale price index rose about one per cent per year.

Using two overlapping samples of articles from the JEL 1970–74 data base, the authors analyse the distribution of economics articles among the subfields, the changes in the distribution 1970–74, and the importance of empirical data generally and by subfield. There is also a casual examination of the quality of empirical data used.

The main developments in national accounts over the next decade are examined under the four main headings of (1) developments of United Kingdom national accounts in relation to the United Nations system, together with its complementary systems and sub-systems; (2) national accounts in support of conjunctural analysis; (3) inflation and the measurements of quantum changes; and (4) possible extensions of the national accounts and the storage and dissemination of national accounts data.

The storage and retrieval of microdata involve serious problems because of the complex documentation required. The changing computer technology and the complex data-manipulation are statistical procedures. At best, secondary use will remain expensive, and its funding a problem. Reductions in cost of access require investments in anticipation of later use which may be self justifying (by increasing that use) but cannot be funded by those future users. A stepwise procedure for access will probably involve securing and reading the initial published analysis, then securing volumes of printed documentation (code books are not enough) and ultimately securing a data file. Now there is a problem of knowing who else has worked, or is working, on the same data.

A sketch of the questions dealt with in monetary economics is followed by a delineation of a hierarchy of libraries for the optimal use of library resources for research in the subfield. Different roles for four types of libraries are distinguished. In the future, materials that libraries will be expected to provide will include computer-based bibliographies, time-series data banks, and magnetic-tape cross-section data. Interlibrary exchanges will become essential Indiscriminate duplication of titles will give way to shared responsibility among types of libraries for collecting research materials in monetary economics, and for providing access to a collective pool of research titles.

The largest share of fiscal economics (public finance) literature will continue to be occupied with taxation. Empirical studies of factors determining governmental expenditures will increase, but studies of levels of government services await an awakening of interest in inequalities of distribution among sub-groups. Transfer payment analyses, excepting subsidies, may increase. Part of public goods theory is moving into microeconomics (equilibrium conditions for goods non-excludable but joint over users), and most of externalities theory, into direct regulation. Inter-disciplinary efforts, which call for centralizing library facilities, will especially characterize public choice and fiscal stabilization literature. Journals, staff papers, services, and official reports will multiply more rapidly than will textbooks.

The paper discusses the information needs of policy oriented regional economic research. These needs have to be derived on the basis of policy goals, political decision processes, the policy instruments available, and a set of theories on the behaviour of the economic system. The lack of data has inhibited the development of operational theories. For the testing of theories as well as for the formulation of long-term regional policies, one needs additional information on: (1) the future demand for space by categories of economic units and the mobility of people and jobs; (2) the cost of changes in the spatial structure of the economy, particularly the social costs and benefits of (a) different degrees of the agglomeration of activities, (b) the utilization of infrastructure services (also as determined by distances) as well as (c) the input and output characteristics of production and the adaptations of firms to changes in their environments. More data on externalities are essential A more flexible information system would make it easier to meet confidentiality requirements.

This paper argues that, barring a spectacular theoretical breakthrough, the greatest gains in the field of international economic research will come in the form of empirical work. Comparable to other fields of economics, the data relevant to international economic research are relatively reliable, complete, and conducive to more intensive use in useful quantitative empirical work. The paper provides a discussion of the major data sources available through international organizations, focusing on their limitations and presenting some suggestions for their improvement. In addition, problems of information retrieval and accessibility are briefly discussed, with the argument made that libraries should become more responsive to the needs of researchers by expanding their handling of machine readable data.

This paper first reviews the progress made since the Second World War in data availability for development research, mainly in the field of macroeconomic aggregates. It then focuses on data sources and data-gathering techniques deemed to be the most promising for large pay-offs in further development research. Greater understanding of the structure and workings of the modern sector of market-oriented developing countries could be obtained by analysing data on the 200 largest corporations in each country. But exclusive emphasis on large companies would neglect some very important research areas, such as income distribution, unemployment/underemployment and extreme poverty. The fresh data needed to get a firmer understanding of these matters are likely to come from the greater use of sample surveys.

This paper identifies information and knowledge useful for agricultural policy analysis, with particular references to the world food situation and conditions in the less developed countries. Different kinds of data are described and means for obtaining and analysing them are discussed. Attention is given to micro and macrodata relevant to project level, national and international policy analysis.

There are two distinct problems: (a) the organization and retrieval of received knowledge; (b) the use of resources for the creation of new knowledge. Insofar as industrial organization is concerned, (a) presents no serious problems in the sense that the literature, which consists primarily of journal articles, is not so voluminous as to be beyond the storage and acquisition capacities of any good research library. On the other hand, (b) does present a serious problem, in that the sources of information are highly diverse and what information will prove useful is difficult to predict. The problem of diversity is accentuated by the expectation that industrial organization research will increasingly focus on data at the level of the firm or enterprise.

The main topic of the article is the state of and the needs for, information about technological progress (the author uses the terms ‘scientific and technological revolution’ (STR) and ‘economic growth’ (EG). The key nature of the relationship between STR and EG is determined by the content, scope, and rate of development of science and technology. The strong necessity for a new approach to providing scientists with information about STR-EG stems from the multidimensional interdisciplinary character of this field of investigation. The problem of satisfying their requirements is viewed from two angles: (1) does the information exist? (2) is it available? The author supposes that there is a timely question of expanding, improving, and unifying the necessary empirical data. As concerns the availability, the author analyses the experience of the Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences (USSR); different types of information retrieval systems used in the Institute, the organization of bibliographical and abstract information, etc.

This paper focuses on the library needs of economists doing research in economic history. After a brief reference to the special characteristics of the information required by the economic historian, it discusses recent trends in the subject—particularly the persistent interest in economic growth and development since the early 1950s and the ‘new’ economic history with its heavy dependence on statistical-analytical techniques. Both trends have increased the volume of quantitative data and widened the range of the qualitative data required for research in economic history. The last section suggests an order of priorities for university libraries providing economic historians with research material.

At the present time, in the Soviet Union there is a rapid development of computerized economic information systems primarily in connection with the requirements of its economic planning and management. In some aspects this work is being carried out together with other CMEA member-countries and will result in the creation of an international network of information in economic statistics.

It is necessary to distinguish between information and knowledge since the latter is less easily communicated than the former. It is also necessary to attend to the input cost of communication, together with the willingness of potential users to meet that cost, particularly given the limited market provided by those with a relevant interest in the history of economic thought.

Economists are working more in the other social sciences. To discover whether this trend is likely to continue, we need to know the reasons why it is happening. It has come about largely because of the use of such techniques as quantitative methods or cost-benefit analysis with which economists are familiar and, more recently, by economists using economic theory as a basis for studying political science, sociology, law and the like. To the extent that such work by economists depends on the possession of superior techniques or approaches, it is not likely to continue, since other social scientists should be able to master such techniques or approaches where they are valuable and will be more familiar with the subject matter. But economists also study other social systems because their working is so intermeshed with the economic system as to make it impossible to discuss usefully the economic system without simultaneously considering these other social systems. This is particularly true of parts of the legal system. This being so, we may expect the scope of economics to be permantly enlarged to include studies in the other social sciences.

The central question is whether there will be a reaction from the dominance of mathematics and econometrics. Affluence has meant problems of space and cost for libraries, while demands for more amenities, permissiveness about theft and vandalism, as well as graduate work and empirical research impose new demands. Reaction towards conventional library scholarship may follow from ‘radicalism’ diminishing returns from mathematical and quantitative techniques, declining enrolments and junior staff ratios, and the need for new ideas. One likely line is ethics and welfare economics. Rising publishing costs may reduce library storage problems.