ABSTRACT
Our Association has had many firsts among its American sisters. Another such first, a very distinctive one, is the choice of the theme “Facing the Future” for its Sixteenth Economic Conference. To underline this choice, I decided to devote my address to a topic that goes deep to the very core of facing the future. I will not use up your time with any prediction of demand and supply of oil or other fossil fuels by 1990 AD, or 2000 AD, or any other future year, nor with the elasticity of these factors computed by still another econometric model. You can find such information in the plethora of books that by now cause the academic libraries to burst at their seams. Instead, I propose to present to you a new analytical representation of the production process—that is, a new production function—that, among other things, enables us to discover not only the real nature of the present crisis but also its possible unfolding.
