ABSTRACT
Up to now we have considered the problem of the short-term planning of an entrepreneur working in the framework of an existing business: “short-term” meaning related to a single period of time. We must now turn our attention to the plans of an entrepreneur which extend over several economic periods. This sort of long-term planning is always involved when a decision is taken about founding a new undertaking. But even within the framework of an existing firm there are, in addition to the plans for the coming period, decisions to be made which relate to the course of economic events over several periods. Every purchase of a durable factor of production necessarily involves a long-term plan. Each planned extension of a plant, or each planned alteration in a production programme, necessarily requires planning for several economic periods. It is impossible in such an introductory account as this to deal with all aspects of the problems of long-term economic planning. We must confine ourselves to describing the fundamental relationships.( 1 )
