222
BOOK REVIEWS
within the economy it is true, but such is not the purpose of forecasting it is the result that matters, not the economic significance of the method of obtaining it.
This review is not falling into that mould of criticism which consists of the complaint: why did not the author write a different kind of book to the one which he actually wrote? The point here is that a specific task could have been performed better in less than one fifth of the space which this book occupies. The length of this book is prodigious relative to its achievement. The authors seem anxious to perform techniques which have become respectable in economics and write as if the scientific weight of a publication corresponds to its physical weight. The chapter on cotton, for instance, covers twenty-six pages but requires only the last three to state its effective contribution that given the importance of quota restrictions in Hong Kong's textile trade one may as well predict simply on the basis of past trends. The description of the industry which precedes this is irrelevant and pedestrian. All the chapters which deal with the projections of Hong Kong's domestic production of primary products share the same fault: descriptions of the sector concerned, in great detail but without analytical insights, are provided which do not link in any discernable way to the straightforward extrapolations which eventually emerge.
In short, the book fails. It is difficult to imagine any reader interested in the results. Many will be interested in the methods but here there is room for doubts that the econometrics have been imaginatively executed and the feeling that the authors have been excessively optimistic about the accuracy of the predictions of income and population. The effective passages of the book which actually come to grips with the task of forecasting are ponderously padded out, regrettably, because this aspect of the work threatens to obscure its merits, namely, the feel for economic statistics and the ability of the authors to write interestingly about them.
University of Hong Kong, and
Department of Trade and Industry, London
NICHOLAS OWEN.
222
BOOK REVIEWS
within the economy it is true, but such is not the purpose of fore- casting it is the result that matters, not the economic significance of the method of obtaining it.
This review is not falling into that mould of criticism which consists of the complaint: why did not the author write a different kind of book to the one which he actually wrote? The point here is that a specific task could have been performed better in less than one fifth of the space which this book occupies. The length of this book is prodigious relative to its achievement. The authors seem anxious to perform techniques which have become respectable in economics and write as if the scientific weight of a publication cor- responds to its physical weight. The chapter on cotton, for instance, covers twenty six pages but requires only the last three to state its effective contribution that given the importance of quota restric- tions in Hong Kong's textile trade one may as well predict simply on the basis of past trends. The description of the industry which pre- cedes this is irrelevant and pedestrian. All the chapters which deal with the projections of Hong Kong's domestic production of pri- mary products share the same fault: descriptions of the sector con- cerned, in great detail but without analytical insights, are provided which do not link in any discernable way to the straightforward extrapolations which eventually emerge.
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In short, the book fails. It is difficult to imagine any reader inter- ested in the results. Many will be interested in the methods but here there is room for doubts that the econometrics have been ima- ginatively executed and the feeling that the authors have been ex- cessively optimistic about the accuracy of the predictions of income and population. The effective passages of the book which actually come to grips with the task of forecasting are ponderously padded out, regrettably, because this aspect of the work threatens to obscure its merits, namely, the feel for economic statistics and the ability of the authors to write interestingly about them.
University of Hong Kong, and
Department of Trade and Industry, London
NICHOLAS OWEN.
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