Summary Record of the Discussion — Session I

Professor Robinson opened the discussion on the first four papers of the Conference. He began by reviewing the paper by Professor Sorokin on rates of economic growth in Eastern Europe. He asked that the problem of comparing rates of growth be left aside in order to concentrate discussion upon the factors generating the rapid expansion which had taken place since the War. He found that the paper by Professors Cobeljic and Stojanovic attributed much of the growth to the movement of labour from low to high productivity sectors, e.g. from small- to large-scale industry. This would not, however, be an inexhaustible source of growth: while it still had great possibilities for a number of socialist countries, there seemed to be some signs that this source was running out. A second source, common also in capitalist countries, had been the increased participation of women in the labour force. The problem, however, had been that as families grew richer, the women tended to work less. Increasing productivity within specific industries had been a third source. This was partly a result of technological progress following investment in research and development, and partly of improvements in organization. Comparisons of technically-identical oil refineries in the United Kingdom and the United States showed a higher employment in the British counterparts: clearly this differential arose from the degree of personal effort, the level of training, and manning practices. There seemed indeed to be