Large scale calculating machines may make it feasible for the government to set production goals for major industries, Frederick V. Waugh of President Truman's Council of Economic Advisers told a conference at Harvard last week.

The conference also heard Frederick Mosteller, lecturer on Mechanical Statistics, predict that new Large-scale Digital Calculating machinery may soon enable scientists to predict mathematically the chances of success of a given marriage or the degree of readjustment to the community that a given parolee will make when he is released from prison.

Waugh and Mosteller spoke at the Symposum on the new Mark III Calculator which Harvard built for the Navy. The Symposium was hold from September 13 to 16.

The implications of the new machine to the field of economics were discussed by Waugh and by Wassily W. Leontief, professor of Economics.

"There is a crying need for a few basic studies dealing in detail with the whole economy," Waugh stated. The machine, he continued, will enable us to make such extensive analysis because for the first time it will be possible to take into account the thousands of variables that influence the economy.

"We need to know how much of each kind of employment and production is needed, and how expenditures need to be allocated among various groups of consumer goods and investment categories," he said.

Referring to post-war studies of agricultural needs made by the department of Agriculture, Waugh urged the study of national clothing, housing, coal, steel, automobile, road, and school needs and the setting of production goals in these and other fields.

Statistics Needed

The advanced data which the machine can provide us with will help to enable us to arrive at goals which are "feasible to reach," he said. The economist emphasized that accurate and detailed statistics are not enough to determine a good set of goals for the economy. In a democracy of free people the citizens determine such goals. In so doing they taken into account factors such as the amount and kind of work they prefer and standards of health and diet prevalent among different working groups.

But to make intelligent decisions about their economic future, citizens must know what the alternatives are, and the large-scale computer, Waugh states, can give us useful information about the alternatives.

Economic goals cannot be "static," the economist continued. The policy of one period naturally affects the following period. A high degree of investment now will bolster futur productive capacity. Temporary deficit financing may forestall a depression but will create unique problems, Waugh said.

Forecasts Boom and Bust

What about timing? Can the mathematician, with the help of large-scale computers, help us to make intelligent choices and avoid alternate periods of boom and bust? Computers can, Waugh said, to the extent that they will help us to foresee the probable results of the various economic policies up for consideration.

Emphasizing the interdependence of economic factors and the effect that manpulation in one field can have on other fields, Waugh pointed to the repercussions on the overall economy that a policy of over support or under support of farm prices might have.

Excessive taxation or over-extended credit could also be disastrous to the country. Studies of monetary and credit controls, taxes, public works programs and social security were urged by the economist.