Study of the Size and Efficiency of the American Economy

Abstract

The problem before us is the link between the size and the efficiency of the United States. The problem might be put narrowly: do the obstacles that political boundaries raise to the movement of goods, men, money, and ideas impose fewer disadvantages on the large economy of the United States than on the smaller economies of other countries? To this question most of us would nod our heads quickly, and we would support the answer along the following lines. The United States has open to it whatever opportunities for efficiency are provided by wide markets despite the obstacles to international trade. Some, perhaps many, of these opportunities may be open even in countries not nearly as large as the United States; but there must be some which appear only in the very largest of economies. We may presume, also, that the opportunities opened by wide markets are not neglected in the United States. The vast size of the American economy therefore probably contributes in some degree to the high level of American efficiency.