Our interest in capital utilization began to develop about ten years ago,at a time when the literature was extremely sparse and the topic seemed to be unduly neglected in light of its intellectual and practical significance. After collaborating on a number of articles on the subject, we reached the conclusion during 1975 that the time was ripe to attempt a more comprehensive treatment of the subject. Our aim was to write a book that would systematize the existing body of literature, which by then had grown much larger, while advancing the frontiers of knowledge in several important directions. The reader will be the judge of the success of our efforts.

A project as ambitious as this requires support from a number of sources. On the institutional side, sabbatical leaves to both authors during the initial phase of research for the book were extremely beneficial in two ways. They gave us time to work on the project and opportunities to interact with other researchers working on capitalutilization at Boston University (C.K.C.) and at the International Labor Office (R.R.B.). In addition, the General Research Board at the University of Maryland provided summer support for one of the authors (R.R.B.) during 1977. Finally, computer time was provided by the University of Maryland Computer Science Center.

On an individual level, our thanks go to Y. Kim and G. Winston for their very useful comments.