Abstract
With the increased likelihood of budget reductions in defense expenditures, the question of how the United States might respond to a future national emergency is a key concern of many policy planners. As part of the planning process, national emergency planners require estimates of available productive capacity during emergency conditions to allow development of integrated policies for industrial preparedness.
The paper summarizes the concepts, methods, and results of a study of emergency operating capacity (EOC) at the 4-digit standard industrial code (SIC) industry level of aggregation. The data used for empirical estimation are the historical capacity utilization measures collected by the Bureau of Census in the Survey of Plant Capacity (SPC). These utilization measures are used in conjunction with industry output measures to develop estimates of “practical” capacity by 4-digit SIC industry. Data collected in the SPC on weekly plant hours are used to obtain preliminary estimates of the additional “emergency” capacity expected from plant operation of 7 days per week, 24 hours per day.
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