The first of its kind, a seminar on Production Theory was held at the University of Karlsruhe during May and June 1973. Seven of the nineteen resource participants were from Canada, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and the U.S.A., to make the seminar an international symposium. The other par ticipants involved a variety of experts from German univer sities. Karlsruhe supplied the predominant part of the Ger man contributors. For the discussions of the seminar twenty papers span ning a large part of production theory were prepared and these papers are herewith published as a coherent collection under the title: KARLSRUHE SEMINAR ON PRODUCTION THEORY. Papers on scalar valued production functions are orga nized in Part 1. Several of these provide new characteri zations of CES productiop functions, partly in connection with technical progress, and two others are related to homothetic production functions. Six papers on multisectoral production models have been included in Parts 2 and 3, addressed in part to problems of dynamic structures, disaggregation and relaxation of simple homogeneity. Turning next to more general production models, Part 4 contains five papers involving set valued production func tionsor production correspondences, dealing with such topics as efficient pOints, stochastic aspects, homogeneity, homo theticity and the law of diminishing returns.

1 Scalar-Valued Production Functions: Homotheticity, Quasilinearity, and Technical Progress

Invariant Relationships for Homothetic Production Functions
Characterization of the CES Production Functions by Quasilinearity
Technical Progress, Neutral Inventions, and Cobb-Douglas
A Characterization of Hicks Neutral Technical Progress
On Linear Expansion Paths and Homothetic Production Functions
Neutral Inventions and CES Production Functions
2 Linear Multisectoral Production Models
Production Duality and the von Neumann Theory of Growth and Interest
A Note on a Production Problem in a Multisectoral Economic Model
A Dynamic Input-Output Model with Variable Production Structure
Disaggregated Production Functions
3 Nonlinear Multisectoral Production Models
Balanced Growth of Open Economies under Variable Degree of Homogeneity
On Weak Homogeneity
4 Production Correspondences
Continuity of Production Correspondences and a Relation between Efficient Input and Output Vectors
On Efficient Points of a Stochastic Production Correspondence
Production Correspondences and Convex Algebra
Semi-Homogeneous Production Functions and Scaling of Production
The Law of Diminishing Returns
5 Topics Related to Production Theory
A Category of Production Decision Models
Value and Cost of Information Systems
On The Problem of Product Life Cycle
Author Index.