How do you measure the structural similarity (difference) between economies? We follow an axiomatic approach in the paper answering this question. Our characterization of the measurement of structural difference between economies leads to some difference (similarity) index which is practically...

In empirical studies concerning comparison of economic structures and/or structural changes of economies, it is quite useful to employ an aggregate index to describe the structural difference (similarity). This paper offers an axiomatic characterization of the measurement of structural...

pt. 1. Pre-Smith analyses -- pt. 2. The Smithian economics of the division of labor -- pt. 3. Marx on the division of labor in capitalist manufacturing and the Hayekian problem of knowledge -- pt. 4. Economic development framed in the economics of the division of labor.