IN the last week of the year, in the interval between the Christmas swirl and the New Year's resolves, comes the week of finishing up and summing up: inventory time. We are addicted to the habit too. One TIME institution at this season is the year-end business review. We try to make it more than a review, a fresh assembling of facts and seeking of opinions. Our aim is to provide in one article both a brief summary of the recent past with an indication of what is to come. For this week's survey, our reporters in the field filed 250,000 words. Researcher Piri Halasz, who covered the "head office town" of New York, interviewed 15 top executives and economists. Her report to Writer Marshall Loeb and Business Editor Robert Christopher totaled 50 pages. In Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Detroit, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Washington, correspondents talked to some 35 chairmen and presidents, as many vice presidents, as well as investment bankers and economists (among economists we seek to strike a balance between university, government and corporate economists, since each has his special interests and insights. Few of the men who contributed their ideas on the economy are directly quoted, but their consensus is reflected. Those interviewed form an impressive roster of U.S. business: Among bankers, Chase Manhattan President David Rockefeller, Bank of America Vice Chairman Rudolph Peterson, Chicago First National's President Herbert Prochnow, Atlanta First National's Chairman James Robinson.

Among industrialists, such company chairmen as Frederic Donner (General Motors), Roger Blough (U.S. Steel), Joseph Block (Inland Steel), Carter Burgess (American Machine & Foundry), Charles Percy (Bell & Howell), such presidents as Edgar Kaiser (Kaiser Industries), J. Paul Austin (Coca-Cola), Thomas Jones (Northrop).

Among investment bankers, Armand Erpf and Sidney Weinberg.

Among economists, Walter Heller (President Kennedy's chief economic adviser), Paul Samuelson of M.I.T., Beryl Sprinkel of Harris Trust, Theodore Andersen of U.C.L.A., J. Carvel Lange of New York.

The most significant moral to be drawn from 1962's business year was the impact of overseas business upon the U.S., and the increasing U.S. involvement abroad. To round out this part of the story, our Common Market Correspondent Jason McManus interviewed several dozen bankers, industrialists and economists in Europe, as well as that new breed of technician, the Eurocrats. For the past 6 months we have been presenting two business sections each week--U.S. and World Business. Since the theme of this story is how the two areas became interwoven in 1962, it is appropriate that in our year-end review we put the two sections back together again, just for the week.

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