Industrial production and capacity utilization: recent developments and the 1999 annual revision

In late 1999, the Federal Reserve published revised measures of industrial production, capacity, and capacity utilization for the period January 1992 through October 1999. The updated measures reflect both the incorporation of newly available, more comprehensive source data typical of annual revisions and the introduction of improved methods for compiling a few series, including computer and office equipment and motor vehicles. The new source data are for recent years, primarily from 1997 on, and the modified methods affect data beginning in 1992. ; The production index for the third quarter of 1999 is at 137.7 percent of output in 1992, compared with 135.2 percent reported before the annual revision, and the capacity index is 170.7 percent of output in 1992, compared with 167.9 percent reported previously. As a result, the rate of industrial capacity utilization was revised up 0.1 percentage point, to 80.7 percent for the third quarter of 1999.Industrial production index ; Industrial capacity

Industrial production and capacity utilization: the 2001 annual revision

In late 2001, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System published the annual revision of its index of industrial production and the related measures of capacity and capacity utilization for the period January 1992 to October 2001. The updated measures reflect the incorporation of newly available, more-comprehensive source data and the introduction of improved methods for compiling a few series. ; Measured fourth quarter to fourth quarter, increases in rates of industrial output and capacity have been revised downward from rates previously reported for 1999 and 2000. The revision places the decline in industrial output in 2001 at an annual rate of 6.0 percent. The estimated rate of increase in capacity in 2001 was lowered by 0.7 percentage point, to 1.7 percent. The rate of industrial capacity utilization as of the third quarter of 2001 was little changed by the revision; at 74.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2001, the rate is 4 percentage points below the nadir of the 1990-91 recession but 3 percentage points above that of the 1982 recession.Industrial production index ; Industrial capacity

Loi de position?

La loi de position tire sa force de son imprécision, de son refus d’examiner avec rigueur les faits du passé et de son recours au futur pour ignorer les cas les plus récalcitrants. Spence (1988) se porte néanmoins à sa rescousse dans ce numéro. Son argumentation, cependant, est minée par de nombreuses généralisations hâtives, pour ne pas dire fausses. Il concède à mes remarques antérieures (Morin 1986) que la longueur pourrait avoir eu une influence, mais déforme souvent mes propos. En particulier, il m’attribue à tord la thèse que « la qualité des voyelles contemporaines [du français] se rattacherait […] à leur longueur en français moyen »— une thèse qui est clairement farfelue et qu’il n’a aucun mal à discréditer.The loi de position draws its strength from its lack of precision, its cursory concern for historical facts, and its appeal to future evolution to set aside recalcitrant data. Spence (1988) will nevertheless champion its cause in this journal. His argumentation, however, suffers from being based on numerous hasty—not to say false—generalizations. He will concede that vocalic length might have had some influence, but to much less an extent than he claims I proposed (Morin 1986). He presents a distorted view of my analysis; in particular, he imputes me the thesis that "vowel quality in modern French would derive from vocalic length in middle French"—which is so obviously false that he has no difficulty in falsifying it

La loi de position ou de l’explication en phonologie historique

On attribue un grand nombre des changements historiques ayant affecté le timbre des voyelles en français à l’effet de la loi de position, qui dans une de ses formulations, dit que les voyelles ont tendance à s’ouvrir en syllabe fermée et à se fermer en syllabe ouverte. Nous examinons ici différentes interprétations de cette loi (formulation, portée, progression dans le temps, valeur descriptive et explicative), et montrons que celle-ci ne constitue qu’un schéma vague, souvent incorrect et sans vraie valeur explicative. Nous proposons au contraire que les changements décrits par la loi de position s’expliquent essentiellement en fonction de la durée vocalique, et en particulier que les voyelles longues tendent à se fermer et les voyelles brèves à s’ouvrir.Many changes in the history of the French vowel system have been credited to a simple law—the loi de position, one formulation of which says that vowels tend to rise in open syllables and to fall in closed ones. I examine here various proposals concerning this diachronic law: its formulation, its scope, the period during which it applies, its descriptive and explanatory value, and conclude that it is altogether imprecise, inaccurate and unexplanatory. A better analysis directly relates these changes to vowel length, in particular, long vowels often rise and short vowels often fall