This volume contains the papers presented at the October 7, 1977 conference on “U.S. Productive Capacity: Estimating the Utilization Gap,” held in St. Louis, Missouri. The conference, cosponsored by the Center for the Study of American Business and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, examined the current and projected estimates of U.S. productive capacity and utilization. Appropriate measures of the gap between productive capacity utilized and full productive capacity are important to the development of appropriate economic policy.