Critical Essays on Piero Sraffa's Legacy in Economics

by Edited by Heinz D. Kurz

• ISBN13: 9780521580892
• ISBN10: 0521580897
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-06-19
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This collection offers a critical assessment of the published works of Piero Sraffa, one of the leading economists of the twentieth century, and their legacy for the economics profession. The topics covered explore Sraffa's interpretation of the classical economists; his theory of value and distribution; his critique of partial and general neoclassical equilibrium theory; his focus on the problem of capital; and his critique of Hayek's monetary overinvestment theory of the business cycle. Specific issues investigated include intertemporal general equilibrium theory and the capital problem; the probability of reswitching; Ricardo, Malthus, and the corn model; and the meaning and implication of the capital controversy. Among the contributors are many of the world's leading students of Sraffian economics.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
List of contributors	xiii
Part I. Introduction
Piero Sraffa's contributions to economics: a brief survey	3	(22)
Heinz D. Kurz
Neri Salvadori
Revisionist findings on Sraffa	25	(86)
Paul A. Samuelson
Comment	45	(3)
John Eatwell
Comment	48	(21)
Pierangelo Garegnani
Comment	69	(18)
Bertram Schefold
Reply	87	(24)
Paul A. Samuelson
Part II. Returns to scale, demand, money and interest, and the classical tradition
Sraffa's hits and misses	111	(70)
Paul A. Samuelson
Comment	152	(11)
Heinz D. Kurz
Neni Salvadori
Reactions	163	(18)
Paul A. Samuelson
Sraffa on demand: a textual analysis	181	(17)
Neri Salvadori
Malthus and the corn-profit model	198	(59)
Samuel Hollander
Comment	223	(23)
Pierangelo Garegnani
Rejoinder	246	(11)
Samuel Hollander
The Hayek-Keynes-Sraffa controversy reconsidered	257	(48)
Heinz D. Kurz
Part III. Long-period theory and the problem of capital
The capital theory controversy	305	(10)
Edwin Burmeister
Wicksell and Douglas on distribution and marginal productivity	315	(8)
Christian Bidard
On the probability of re-switching and capital reversing in a two-sector Sraffian model	323	(40)
Lynn Mainwaring
Jan Steedman
Comment	354	(4)
Neri Salvadori
Comment	358	(5)
Christian Bidard
Lucette Carter
Part IV. Intertemporal equilibrium theory and the problem of capital
Paradoxes of capital and counterintuitive changes of distribution in an intertemporal equilibrium model	363	(29)
Bertram Schefold
Savings, investment and capital in a system of general intertemporal equilibrium	392	(58)
Pierangelo Garegnani
Mathematical Note	446	(4)
Michelc Tucci
Author index	450	(3)
Subject index	453