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The efficiency of fixed capital in industry, by Gilbert Cette. The very appreciable inflection of the efficiency of productive fixed capital curve after 1974 —as well as that of the productivity of laborraises the question of a possible exhaustion of technological progress. However, we may wonder whether this inflection is not in great part ascribable to changes in the rate of utilization of production capacities and in the duration of the utilization of equipment. This article analyzes the evolution between 1960 and 1979, of the efficiency of fixed capital in French industry, broken down into three major branches: intermediate goods, capital goods, and consumer goods. Part one, which is very descriptive, shows that the inflection, after 1974, of the apparent efficiency of capital curve in the different branches of industry seems to be a consequence of variations in the rate and duration of the utilization of equipment. Given a constant duration of utilization, the evolution of the potential efficiency of «material» capital was very steady over the whole period. The potential hourly efficiency of the totality of fixed capital (material + buildings), likewise underwent no inflexion in 1974, but did not evolve in the same way. Indeed, growth in «buildings» capital was very scanty between 1959 and 1979, yet it did inflect slightly upwards after 1969. Therefore, given a constant duration of utilization of equipment, the potential efficiency of total fixed capital rose steadily from 1959 to 1969, then became stable until 1979. In part two, the estimation of a production function with complementary factors confirms these results. Here, fixed capital was measured in terms of «material» capital, more appropriate for an econometric study of the relation between potential production and capital stock. Estimates definitely show remarkable stability of technological progress coefficients, which modify the potential hourly efficiency of material capital. The downward inflexion of the apparent efficiency of industrial fixed capital from 1973-1974, thus appears to be less ascribable to an exhaustion of technological progress and slowing up of its spread to the most recent generations of capital, than it is ascribable to changes occuring, from the very beginning of the crisis, in the utilization (rate and duration) of industrial equipment.

The French «Foreign trade» model (Mec 2), by Jean Mathis and Jacques Régniez. Mec 2 is a French six-product foreign trade model intended for use in the preparation of economic budgets. Modelization of foreign trade for the three main industrial products (intermediate goods, capital goods, consumer goods) brings into play production capacities, demands (domestic and foreign) and relative price variables. Estimates show a massive substitutability between domestic demand and the foreign balance. One billion francs more in demand for a product results in a trade deficit for this same product of 0.6, 0.8 and 0.5 billion francs, respectively. Foreign trade in agricultural products and processed foodstuffs is modelized as a balance (and not separately as exports and imports). This balance depends upon the surplus of production over domestic demand, and upon the greater or lesser utilization of existing storage capacities. Different variant effects are presented, which in particular bring out the drop in the efficiency of devaluation (in terms of effects on the balance in values) ever since the rise in the price of energy.