ABSTRACT
Concerning cost curves for separate enterprises, of course very much is known inside those enterprises; but these data are usually secret. The research worker outside the business firm, therefore, is handicapped. This handicap is gradually decreasing through the growing number of publications in this field. On the other hand, if the figures are available, they are often not suitable for further research in general economic problems. The structure of most industrial enterprises is intricate and there are many ways in which the available means of production may be used. A textile factory may increase its production in different ways; for instance, the number of looms in a weaving mill operated by one man or woman, may be varied; also the speed of the machines can be varied. The production costs, therefore, do not depend in an immediately discernible way on the rate of production. How costs react on demand fluctuations depends on many individual details. With macroeconomic problems, on the other hand, we are concerned with the total increase of costs of large groups of enterprises or of branches of industry in relation to the rate of production. It can easily happen that in those investigations, tendencies become apparent which, although in principle present in every enterprise separately, are nearly invisible in the latter, through the influence of individual factors outweighing the systematic ones. It is therefore possible that macroeconomic relations which have little use microeconomically are valid, and conversely. This is exactly the same in the psychic sphere.
