The paper focuses on the theoretical modifications of the concept of external economies built by Marshall. The history of external economies was at its crossroads in the thirties, when the Symposium on Increasing Returns took place in Cambridge. Sraffa formulated the main criticism against external economies by pointing to its lack of compatibility with perfect competition, statics and partial equilibrium. I shall try to show that the construction of parametric external economies by John Chipman (1970) is the logical outcome of the controversy on returns, opposing Sraffa to Marshall, Pigou, Shove and Robertson (1930).
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.