IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revpoe/v24y2012i3p437-444.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Comment on ‘The Measurement of Prices of Production’ by Peter Flaschel, Reiner Franke & Roberto Veneziani

Author

Listed:
  • Bertram Schefold

Abstract

After giving a summary of the Cambridge debate, the comment criticizes the proposal by Flaschel, Franke and Veneziani to base the classical approach on systems of production with unequal rates of profit both theoretically and on empirical grounds: The classical gravitation of market prices towards normal prices is hard to defend, if there are persistent differentials of profit rates, but the profit rate differentials in the paper are not even stable. The comment further defends the idea of representing states of knowledge about technology by means of input-ouput tables against objections regarding the transferability of methods between countries and discusses alternative approaches to the treatment of fixed capital. It is shown that the data used by the authors for capital stocks are not supported by the data of the German Statistical Office. I agree with the authors in the most essential point, however: Contrary to the position taken e.g. by Joan Robinson, we all believe that the problems of capital theory raised in the Cambridge debate must be analyzed not only in abstract theory but also at the applied level. We all were surprised to find that empirical wage curves tend to be close to straight lines so that double intersections of such wage curves, hence reswitching and reverse capital deepening, must be rare. This phenomenon needs to be explained; a possible explanation can be derived from the random nature of the input-output matrices, and, so far, no other explanation has been proposed.

Suggested Citation

  • Bertram Schefold, 2012. "A Comment on ‘The Measurement of Prices of Production’ by Peter Flaschel, Reiner Franke & Roberto Veneziani," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 437-444, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:24:y:2012:i:3:p:437-444
    DOI: 10.1080/09538259.2012.701921
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09538259.2012.701921
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09538259.2012.701921?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harcourt,G. C., 1972. "Some Cambridge Controversies in the Theory of Capital," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521096720.
    2. Mariolis, Theodore & Tsoulfidis, Lefteris, 2010. "Eigenvalue distribution and the production price-profit rate relationship in linear single-product systems: theory and empirical evidence," MPRA Paper 43716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Garbellini, Nadia, 2020. "Measurement without theory, and theory without measurement: What's wrong with Piketty's capital in the XXI century?," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 50-62.
    2. Jeroen C. J. M. van den Bergh, 1999. "Materials, Capital, Direct/Indirect Substitution, and Mass Balance Production Functions," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 75(4), pages 547-561.
    3. McCloskey Deirdre Nansen, 2018. "The Two Movements in Economic Thought, 1700–2000: Empty Economic Boxes Revisited," Man and the Economy, De Gruyter, vol. 5(2), pages 1-20, December.
    4. Engelbert Stockhammer & Paul Ramskogler, 2009. "Post-Keynesian economics How to move forward," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 6(2), pages 227-246.
    5. Brendan Markey†Towler, 2017. "The Oxford Handbook of Post†Keynesian Economics, Volume 1: Theory and Origins," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 93(303), pages 659-661, December.
    6. Nuno Ornelas Martins, 2014. "Inequality, Sustainability and Piketty’s Capital," Working Papers de Economia (Economics Working Papers) 05, Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
    7. Alan Freeman, 1998. "A General Refutation of Okishio’s Theorem and a Proof of the Falling Rate of Profit," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Riccardo Bellofiore (ed.), Marxian Economics: A Reappraisal, chapter 10, pages 139-162, Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Eckhard Hein, 2016. "Secular stagnation or stagnation policy? Steindl after Summers," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 69(276), pages 3-47.
    9. Mark Setterfield & Joana David Avritzer, 2020. "Hysteresis in the normal rate of capacity utilization: A behavioral explanation," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(4), pages 898-919, November.
    10. John Hatch & Colin Rogers, 1997. "Distinguished Fellow of the Economic Society of Australia, 1996: Professor Emeritus Geoff Harcourt," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 73(221), pages 97-100, June.
    11. Ajit Sinha, 2015. "A Reflection on the Samuelson-Garegnani Debate," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-48, September.
    12. G.C. Harcourt, 2011. "Post-Keynesian theory, direct action and political involvement," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 8(1), pages 117-128.
    13. Timothy J. Garrett & Matheus R. Grasselli & Stephen Keen, 2020. "Past production constrains current energy demands: persistent scaling in global energy consumption and implications for climate change mitigation," Papers 2006.03718, arXiv.org.
    14. Kazuhiro Kurose, 2022. "A two-class economy from the multi-sectoral perspective: the controversy between Pasinetti and Meade–Hahn–Samuelson–Modigliani revisited," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 239-270, April.
    15. Amitava Krishna Dutt, 1989. "Sectoral Balance: A Survey," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1989-056, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Robert Dixon, 2018. "Marx 200 years on," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 29(4), pages 481-500, December.
    17. Martin Ricketts, 2014. "Hayek and economic theory in the 1930s," Chapters, in: Roger W. Garrison & Norman Barry (ed.), Elgar Companion to Hayekian Economics, chapter 3, pages 47-70, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Jeon, Heesang, 2015. "Knowledge and Contemporary Capitalism in Light of Marx's Value Theory," Thesis Commons g5njk, Center for Open Science.
    19. Amartya Sen, 2003. "Sraffa, Wittgenstein, and Gramsci," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1240-1255, December.
    20. Khusainov, Bulat & Kireyeva, Anel & Sultanov, Ruslan, 2017. "Eurasian Economic Union: Asymmetries of Growth Factors," MPRA Paper 78841, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:24:y:2012:i:3:p:437-444. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRPE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.