Part II is devoted to "Regional Production of Pig Iron." This brings together, as no other book has done, data showing the shifts in the locale of pig-iron production over a period of eighteen to twenty-five years. Even in this relatively short time there has been a "relentless shift," a "persistent migration" "from the North Atlantic region toward the industrial areas along the Southern shores of Lake Erie and Lake Michigan," as well as "vigorous growth" around Birmingham. Not only does Part II show, by data on furnaces in operation and on output, the trends of these shifts, but, what is equally if not more interesting, the similarities or marked differences between the cycles of iron output in the various regions covered. This part deserves much more extended comment than can be given to it here. The authors of course intersperse tables, maps, and charts with interpretative comment on the data. It seems to the reviewer that one of the principal criticisms of the book is to be made of this part; namely, that all too little is said of the influence of the consuming industries—in other words, of demand and its geographical shifts and cyclical movements-on both the regional trends and the regional cyclical fluctuations portrayed. This in spite of the concluding sentence of the preceding paragraph. While at times the book is fairly tantalizing to a student in its failure to go just one step farther in analysis, and while issue may be taken with some of its premises and conclusions (and with a few typographical errors), it presents a unique study in highly valuable and decidedly readable form. Many an industry's executives might well wish that they had at their command similar volumes of data equally well digested, for their own industries. Indeed, one may suspect that the book was written for executives in esse, or in the making, more than for academic students as such. NEW YORK CITY F. E. RICHTER BOOKS RECEIVED Artman, Charles E. Industrial Struc- Compton, Ralph Theodore. Fiscal The Money Value of a Man. (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1930.) Ethical Problems of Modern Finance. (Lectures delivered in 1929 on the William A. Vawter Foundation on Business Ethics, Northwestern University School of Commerce.) (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1930.) Evans, Griffith C. Mathematical Introduction to Economics. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1930.) Fairchild, Fred Rogers, and Compton, Ralph Theodore. Economic Problems (rev.). (New York: Macmillan Co., 193o.) Faris, Ellsworth; Laune, Ferris; Todd, Arthur J. (ed.). Intelligent Philanthropy. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930.) Fegiz, P. Luzzatto. La Popolazione di Trieste (1875-1928). (Trieste: Istituto Statistico Economico, 1929.) Gini, Corrado; Nasu, Shiroshi; Baker, Oliver E.; and Kuczynski, Robert R. Population. (Lectures on the Harris Foundation, 1929.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930.) Giulio, Scagnetti. Produzione della ricchezza e ripartizione del reddito nelle imprese. (Rome: Angelo Signorelli, 1930.) Grant, Eugene L. Principles of En gineering Economy. (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1930.) Holmes, Frank. One Job for Price. (Boston: Meador Pub. Co., 1930.) Iddings, Elizabeth S. Current Research in Law for the Academic Year 1929-1930. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1930.) Jordan, E. Theory of Legislation. (Indianapolis: Progress Pub. Co., 1930.) Karraker, Cyrus Harreld. The Seventeenth-Century Sheriff. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1930.) McGarry, Edmund D. Mortality in Retail Trade. (Buffalo: Bureau of Business and Social Research, University of Buffalo, 1930.) Niehuss, Marvin L., and Fisher, Ernest M. Problems of Long-Term Leases. (Ann Arbor: Bureau of Business Research, University of Michigan, 1930.) Percy, Lord Eustace. Maritime Trade in War. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930.) Pomfret, John E. The Struggle for Land in Ireland 1800-1923. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1930.) Prickett, Alva L., and Mikesell, R. Merrill. Introduction to Accounting. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930.) Rice, Stuart A. (ed.). Statistics in Social Studies. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930.) Secrist, Horace. Banking Ratios. (Stanford University: Stanford University Press, 1930.) Taylor, Paul S. Mexican Labor in the United States-Dimmit County, Winter Garden District, South Texas. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930.) Thomas, Benjamin Platt. Russo-Amer ican Relations 1815-1867. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1930.) Timoshenko, Vladimir P. The Rôle of Agricultural Fluctuations in the Business Cycle. (Ann Arbor: Bureau of Business Research, University of Michigan, 1930.) Vernadsky, George. A History of Russia (rev. ed.). (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930.) Wagemann, Ernst. Economic Rhythm. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1930.) Whale, P. Barrett. Joint Stock Bank ing in Germany. (London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., 1930.) Williams, Mary Wilhelmine. The People and Politics of Latin America. (Boston: Ginn & Co., 1930.) Wu, Chao-Kwang. The International Aspect of the Missionary Movement in China. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1930.) Giants out of the earth An Advertisement of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company No AGE but ours has seen so swift and complete an application of natural forces to the doing of daily tasks. Man's leaping knowledge . . . embodied in industrial plants and laboratories, airplanes and electric locomotives . . . has won new power and freedom. Machines are the symbols of a new relationship with nature. They are the servants of this civilization... helping men to extend the limits of their opportunities, to change the character of their life. Americans have been pre-eminent in this change, for in whatever they do they seek to utilize nature to the utmost. 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THOMPSON Scripps Foundation for Research in Population Problems in Miami University 462 pages, 6X9, 150 charts and tables, $3.75 The latest volume in the series of McGraw-Hill Publications in Sociology Increasingly, it is becoming evident that the growth in Man's numbers and the distribution of these numbers over the world very directly affect human welfare. On the problems which spring from these patent factors the author has brought to bear intensive study and penetrating analysis. Fortified with many charts, tables, and figures and a wealth of illuminating data, the author traces in the present volume the onrushing tide of mankind, its ebbs and flows, across continents and hemispheres, its surges into urban areas of high concentration-against the background of the findings and theories of the oldest and newest authorities and commentators on the subjects. Make-up of population, rise and fall of birth-rates, the factors involved, famine and disease, future growth of population in the United States, world-wide trends in population, migration and emigration and the control of population growth are among the significant phases of the problem herein carefully analyzed and helpfully discussed. Send for a copy on approval MCGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC. PENN TERMINAL BUILDING 370 Seventh Avenue New York nothing is gained through the use of the more complicated curve B or B' so long as one of the variables is considered to be free from errors of observation, and that when both variables are treated as being affected by errors, the straight line N gives as good a fit as can be expected.21 (See also Fig. 12.) Of course, it might be argued that if the "typical equation" were also fitted on the assumption that both X and Y are subject to error, we should obtain a curve which is superior to the straight line N for purposes of extrapolation. Without stopping to consider the mathematical difficulties which must be overcome if the newer method of curve-fitting is to be applied to the more complicated functions, we may reply that to extend any empirical demand curve much beyond the range of observation is not a safe procedure, as is evident from curve B′ (Fig. 11), and that in most practical problems the extreme ends of the demand curve are of no importance anyway.22 We therefore conclude that the "best" demand curve that may be derived from the data before us is the straight line N. 3. THE LAW OF DEMAND IN TERMS OF TREND RATIOS The equation to our demand curve is Y=-1.9782 X+2.979 (7) the origin being at o,o. This means that, based upon the experience from 1890 to 1914, an increase of one point (or, roughly, I "In comparing the straight lines with the other curves of Figure 11, allowance must be made for the fact that the former were fitted to the absolute values of the trend ratios, while the latter were fitted to the logarithms of these values, without making any allowance for the difference in weighting thus introduced. The same curve may sometimes give widely different results, depending upon whether it was fitted by minimizing the sum of the squares of the absolute figures or of their logarithms. By properly weighting the logarithms of the trend ratios it is possible to fit the curves B and B' so as to make the sum of the squares of the absolute figures a minimum. At the time of fitting, however, we believed (perhaps erroneously) that the extra labor involved would not be worth while. Perhaps it is also worth while to mention in this connection that the method of fitting which takes the errors in both variables into consideration can be applied not only to the straight line but to all curves which are reducible to linear form by logarithmic or other transformation. 22 'See Marshall, Principles of Economics (8th edition), p. 133 and note. |