BANK LOANS TO SHOE MANUFACTURERS,

by E. Morton Jennings Jr. '28.Rumpf Publishing Co., Chicago, 1948, 241pages, $6.00.

Economic theory has been laggard in recognizing that the availability of credit and the non-price terms named as a condition for its extension are fully as important in determining the real cost of credit as the rate of interest charged for its hire. To this and other general economic problems of more than passing interest, particularly that of ascertaining the optimum size of a plant for maximum economics in operation. Mr. Jennings' excellent analysis of the shoe industry makes a timely contribution.

While this book was written especially for the use of credit officers in banking institutions, it will be of great value to the far wider circle of all those who, as students either of industrial problems in general or of regional economic developments, are interested in the complex of forces operating in the shoe industry. Mr. Jennings has, with professional skill, assembled the pertinent statistical and economic data as well as the necessary technical information. Without lengthy dissertations, he gives a clear and concise picture of an industry which, as few others in these days of "closed" industries, still represents the ideal of "free enterprise" in the sense of freedom of entry (and exit).

Not the least inviting aspect of this case study is that it was conducted through all its stages by a financial specialist who has a fulltime position practicing at his trade, rather than by a professional economist or, what is now more common in such intensive analysis, by the research staff of a foundation. Mr. Jennings' material was first submitted in the form of a thesis in 1944 to the Graduate School of Banking conducted at Rutgers University by the American Bankers Association. He has recently been advanced to a full VicePresidency of the First National Bank of Boston and he can derive a special satisfaction from the fact that several universities are now considering the use of his book as a model for the writing of similar reports on other industries.