MEMORANDUM

A part of the original Leontief manuscript with explanatory notes on statistical sources
and methods of computation was not included in the book but left to be reproduced as a
supplement to be distributed. Both Leontief and Gilboy were hesitant about the
supplement: mimeograph or duplication?; what price to charge?; how many copies to
prepare? There was not question of dropping the supplement as it had been offered to
readers in the foreword as distributed by the Harvard Committee for Research in the Social
Sciences. And equally important, it was an obligation to offer complete documentation.
Gilboy and Leontief agreed to postpone decisions until some requests for the supplement
had come in, duplicated copies could after all be done very quickly.
By 14 March 1941 Gilboy had received nine requests for the supplement. She
wondered of there would be a call for more than 100 copies. She had come to realize that
the Foreword had not indicated that the supplement was not free and people who requested
it apparently were hoping to get it free. She suggested a charge of $2.00 but would take it
up with the Committee. The Committee decided on the supplement copies to be prepared
on Harvard’s duplication machine and sold for $0.50 per copy, 100 copies would cost a
maximum of $125.
In the same letter Gilboy expressed the hope that Leontief had got the received the
book, she had checked with HUP made them swear that they had sent it. Leontief hadn’t
got it, perhaps because the Leontief family had gone on an excursion for some weeks to
Taxco, Guerrero and the forwarding of mail was imperfect. Leontief wrote to HUP on 21
March that the book “finally caught up with me in the Mexican wilderness.” He wrote to
Gilboy the same day to say that he was at a loss in estimating the demand for the
supplement. He suggested 100-125 copies, adding, “There hardly will be a rush of
orders.” 236
Leontief may have been disappointed over the sales of the book and Harvard
University Press was no less so. But they drew different conclusions about the future
interest in Leontief’s work. Harvard University Press refused to publish the second
enlarged version of the 1941 book on the grounds that the monograph was “obsolete and of
little scientific interest.” Oxford University Press bought the publishing rights from
Harvard University Press for one dollar! 237
Concluding remarks
The completion of the monograph was only the end of the beginning of input-output
economics at a still early stage of Wassily Leontief’s career. The current section of the
236 Leontief to Mr. Malone, HUP, 21 March 1941; Leontief to Gilboy, 21 March 1941.
237 Parys (2016).
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