"Modern economic growth can be viewed as a continuous process of accumulation and
application of scientific and technical knowledge. Direct foreign investment (DFI) is
one of the most important conduits for the acquisition of that knowledge, and there are
many theories of how DFI leads to international (1) , especially to developing
countries. To overcome that difficulty and arrive at some understanding of this most
interesting and complicated aspect of DFI, it will be useful to examine carefully
various activities of foreign firms that have either sponsored or benefited from
(1) .". (Chi Schive, The Foreign Factor, 1990, p.21)
"I know only one part of economics in which transaction costs have been used to
explain a major feature of the economic system, and that relates to the evolution and
use of (2) . Adam Smith pointed out the hindrances to commerce that could arise
in an economic system in which there was a division of labour but in which all
exchange had to take the form of barter. [A] person wishing to buy something in a
barter system has to find someone who has this product for sale but who also wants
some of the goods possessed by the potential buyer. Similarly, a person wishing to sell
something has to find someone who both wants what he has to offer and also possess
something that the potential seller wants. Exchange in a barter system requires what W.
Stanley Jevons called "this double coincidence." (Ronald Coase, Essays on Economics
and Economists, 1994, p.9).
"The large manufacturer has a much better chance than a small one has, of getting hold
of men with exceptional natural abilities, to do the most difficult part of his work - that
on which the reputation of his establishment chiefly depends. This is occasionally
important as regards mere handiwork in trades which require much taste and originality,
as for instance that of a house decorator, and in those which require exceptionally fine
workmanship, as for instance that of a manufacturer of delicate mechanism. But in
most businesses its chief importance lies in the facilities which it gives to the employer
for the selection of able and tried men, men whom he trusts and who trust him, to be
his foremen and heads of departments, We are thus brought to the central problem of
the modern organization of industry, viz. that which relates to the advantages and
disadvantages of the subdivision of the work of (3) ." (Alfred Marshall,
Principles of Economics, 8th ed., 1920, Book IV, Chapter XI)
"For in most of those trades in which the economies of production on a large scale are
of first-rate importance, (4) is difficult. There are no doubt, important exceptions.
A producer may, for instance, obtain access to the whole of a large market in the case
of goods which are so simple and uniform that they can be sold wholesale in vast
quantities. But, most goods of this kind are raw produce; and nearly all the rest are
plain and common, such as steel rails or calico; and their production can be reduced to
routine, for the very reason that they are plain and common. Therefore in the industries
which produce them, no firm can hold its own at all unless equipped with expensive
appliances of nearly the latest type for its main work; while subordinate operations can
be performed by subsidiary industries; and in short there remains no very great
difference between the economies available by a large and by a very large firm; and the
tendency of large firms to drive out small ones has already gone so far as to exhaust
most of the strength of those forces by which it was originally promoted.
But many commodities with regard to which the tendency to increasing return acts
strongly are, more or less, specialities: some of them aim at creating a new want, or at
meeting an old want in a new way. Some of them are adapted to special tastes, and can
never have a very large market; and some have merits that are not easily tested, and
must win their way to general favour slowly. In all such cases the sales of each business
are limited. more or less according to circumstances, to the particular market which it
has slowly and expensively acquired; and though the production itself might be
economically increased very fast, the sale could not." (Alfred Marshall, Principles of
Economics, 8th ed., 1920. Book IV, chapter XI)
一位經濟學教授在黑板上寫下「目前全球原油的儲存總量是531,000,000,000 桶,
目前每年全球原油消耗量是16,500,000,000 桶。」他接著問全班同學,「我們在多
久之後會把原油用光?」請寫下你對這個問題的答案,並且解釋說明。
可觀看題目詳解,並提供模擬測驗!(免費會員無法觀看研究所試題解答)