In my General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, chap. 8, pp. 98–104, I made a brief attempt to illustrate the wide range of fluctuations in net investment, basing myself on certain calculations by Mr Colin Clark for Great Britain and by Mr Kuznets for the United States.

In the case of Mr Kuznets' figures I pointed out (p. 103) that his allowances for depreciation, etc., included ‘no deduction at all in respect of houses and other durable commodities in the hands of individuals’. But the table which immediately followed this did not make it sufficiently clear to the reader that the first line relating to ‘gross capital formation’ comprised much wider categories of capital goods than the second line relating to ‘entrepreneurs’ depreciation, etc.'; and I was myself misled on the next page, where I expressed doubts as to the sufficiency of the latter item in relation to the former (forgetting that the latter related only to a part of the former). The result was that the table as printed considerably under-stated the force of the phenomenon which I was concerned to describe, since a complete calculation in respect of depreciation, etc., covering all the items in the first line of the table, would lead to much larger figures than those given in the second line. Some correspondence with Mr Kuznets now enables me to explain these important figures more fully and clearly, and in the light of later information.