This project began when I visited the International Institute of Management, a member of the Science Center Berlin, during the years 1981–3. I was working on my study, Profits in the Long Run, and in visiting with people in Europe and presenting portions of that work the idea arose to do some of the same hypotheses testing for other countries as I was doing for the United States.

A project of this scope requires the enthusiastic participation of a large number of people, and this project was fortunate in there being such a group to be found. A couple of meetings were held on methodological issues, data problems, and the like, and things sailed along from then on rather smoothly – with the inevitable delays of a project with twelve participants drawn from six countries and three continents.

The gratitude of all of us goes to the Science Center Berlin, which sponsored the research of myself and several others on portions of this project, as well as a conference in 1987 to discuss preliminary results. We also thank the Center for Economic and Policy Studies (CEPS) of Brussels for sponsoring one of our earlier meetings.

Rebecca Flick provided invaluable assistance on putting the manuscript together, typing not only my work but redrafts of the work of others, and to her I owe a special note of thanks.