Today, Alchian's quot;Uncertainty, evolution and economic theoryquot; (1950) is hailed by evolutionary economists as a most important piece, which resumed an evolutionary brand of theorizing in economics after the eclipse of the interwar period. On the other hand, Alchian's article is also...

We address the long standing question of whether production factors are paid their marginalproducts. We propose a new approach that circumvents the need to specify productionfunctions and to compare marginal products to factor payments. Our approach is based on asimple equation that directly...

We address the long standing question of whether production factors are paid their marginal products. We propose a new approach that circumvents the need to specify production functions and to compare marginal products to factor payments. Our approach is based on a simple equation that directly...

We consider a model of production with a continuum of linear techniques and examine the related choice of technique and shape of the demand for capital schedule. The primary conclusion regards the possibility of a decreasing demand for capital schedule combined with reswitching and reverse...

The possibility of the reswitching of techniques in Piero Sraffa's intersectoral model, namely the recurring capital-intensive techniques with monotonic changes in the interest rate, is traditionally considered as a paradoxical violation of the assumed convexity of technology putting at stake...

This article demonstrates relationships that are transparent in Sraffa's standard system hold even when relative rates of profit vary persistently among industries. Even with such variations, total constant capital, total variable capital, total surplus value, and the rate of profits are...

This article discusses the treatment of fixed capital in Classical theory of price. Sraffa uses non-linear depreciation of “physical” capital that equalizes all annual profit rates individually, but violates the proportionality of monetary machine value reduction and physical use-up on an...

This paper looks at the history of the theory of production. Before the seventieth century, with the advent of mercantilism, the predominant mode of enquiry was a descriptive/normative one. The frameworks applied were ethical and/or religious. The questions asked were about what production or...

We present a novel framework for analyzing cost minimizing production behavior in multi-output settings. Our specific focus is on dealing with joint inputs, i.e. inputs that are simultaneously used for the production of multiple outputs. Here, we distinguish between two possible approaches. The...

We derive and empirically apply an input-oriented distance function based on the stochastic ray production function suggested by L¨othgren (1997, 2000). We show that the derived ray-based input distance function is suitable for modeling production technologies based on logarithmic functional...