Industrial Investment in Europe: Economic Theory and Measurement

The fifth meeting of the «European Production Study Group» (I) was held in Louvain-la-Neuve in September 1984 under the sponsorship of the European Investment Bank. The present volume reports the procee­ dings of this conference which was devoted to various aspects of industrial investment in Europe. Particular attention was given to empirical contributions. Part one contains those focusing on the determinants of firms' investment. The Group was also concerned by policy implications (part two), by the role and the specific nature of foreign investment (part three) and by theoretical developments which have clear empirical implications such as the problems of the measurement of capital utilisation and rates of return (part four). 1. The study by D. Weiserbs on industrial investment in the six major states of the Community shows marked differences between countries. Ac­ cording to his results, demand prospects are the main determinant of in­ vestment growth. Relative price changes have a quantitatively more modest effect while firms' self financing capacity mainly affects short-run deci­ sions. However, as pointed out by C. Boyd in his comment, the small number of observations imposes strong limitations in the modelling of the dynamic aspects of investment. The following threee studies provide a more deeper analysis for France, Italy and Belgium respectively.