IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mos/moswps/2005-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Review Of Selected Literature In The Economics Of Division Of Labor From 5th Century To Wwii: Part I

Author

Listed:
  • Guang-Zhen Sun

Abstract

First of all, one point seems in order regarding the title: this article is not intended to be comprehensive in its coverage. Rather, it focuses on a deliberately and highly selected body of studies on the division of labor ranging from ancient Greeks to WWII as represented by those reproduced in Sun (2005a), with particular attention paid to what I believe has been relatively unknown even among economists of specialization. A more systematic examination, covering hundreds of studies on the division of labor by ancient Greeks, ancient Chinese, medieval Islamic scholars, medieval Latin scholasticists and Anglo-Europeans of recent centuries is found in Sun (2005b). But what is the (commonly accepted definition of) division of labor? The one that Peter Groenewegen uses for the entry ???division of labor??? in New Palgrave's Dictionary of Economics (1987, p.901) may be accepted by overwhelmingly most, if not all, economists: ???The division of labor may be defined as the division of a process or employment into parts, each of which is carried out by a separate person.??? That is, individuals cooperate, consciously or not, to undertake a divisible process or employment. As such, there naturally emerge two fundamental questions: Why, and how does the separation of employment among persons bear upon important economic and social consequences? In fact, the studies to be surveyed below that emerged over twenty-five centuries or so up to WWII basically centre round the above questions. We will first of all map out the evolution of ideas about division of labor up to the classical political economy in Sections I and II. For the body of economic analysis was considerably enriched since then, with different schools/perspectives simultaneously developing and sometimes competing with one another, we will focus on three themes, explored respectively by three most influential schools that have made contributions of lasting value to the economics of the division of labor. Section III examines the idea of mutual interdependence between increasing returns to the division of labor and the extent of the market originating from Smith, substantiated by Wakefield, Mill, Marshall and culminating in Young (1928). Section IV focuses on the division of labor in society and the division of labor in manufacture, on which Marx offers important insights, foreshadowing some modern theories of the firm well into 1990s. Analyses of unfavorable sociological consequences of the division of labor are also briefly surveyed in this section. Section V examines literature on the overarching theme of the spontaneous order, which can be traced back to Mandeville and was later on elaborated by the Scottish Enlightenment men, and the Austrians especially Hayek. Indeed, the Austrians not only developed a general theory of the spontaneous order but also applied it to analyses of many issues that are concomitant with the division of labor, in particularly the origin of money and the socio-economics of dispersed knowledge. Finally, Section VI concludes.

Suggested Citation

  • Guang-Zhen Sun, 2005. "A Review Of Selected Literature In The Economics Of Division Of Labor From 5th Century To Wwii: Part I," Monash Economics Working Papers 01/05, Monash University, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:mos:moswps:2005-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.buseco.monash.edu.au/eco/research/papers/2005/0105divisionoflabour.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker & Kevin M. Murphy, 1994. "The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs, and Knowledge," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 299-322, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1991. "A contribution to the pure theory of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 53(2), pages 215-235, April.
    3. Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro & Wright, Randall, 1989. "On Money as a Medium of Exchange," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(4), pages 927-954, August.
    4. Becker, Gary S, 1985. "Human Capital, Effort, and the Sexual Division of Labor," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 3(1), pages 33-58, January.
    5. Barzel, Yoram & Yu, Ben T, 1984. "The Effect of the Utilization Rate on the Division of Labor," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 22(1), pages 18-27, January.
    6. Menger, Carl, 1892. "On the Origins of Money," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 2, pages 239-255.
    7. Oliver E. Williamson, 1967. "Hierarchical Control and Optimum Firm Size," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 75(2), pages 123-123.
    8. Young, Allyn A., 1928. "Increasing Returns and Economic Progress," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 38, pages 527-542.
    9. West, E G, 1969. "The Political Economy of Alienation: Karl Marx and Adam Smith," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 1-23, March.
    10. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226320625 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Xiaokai Yang & Robert Rice, 2006. "An Equilibrium Model Endogenizing The Emergence Of A Dual Structure Between The Urban And Rural Sectors," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Christis Tombazos & Xiaokai Yang (ed.), Inframarginal Contributions To Development Economics, chapter 8, pages 167-194, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    12. Xiaokai Yang, 1994. "Endogenous vs. exogenous comparative advantage and economies of specialization vs. economies of scale," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 29-54, February.
    13. Barry Gordon, 1975. "Economic Analysis before Adam Smith," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-02116-1, December.
    14. James M. Buchanan, 2005. "Natural Equality, Increasing Returns, And Economic Progress: A Reinterpretation Of Adam Smith'S System," Division of Labor & Transaction Costs (DLTC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 1(01), pages 57-66.
    15. S. M. Ghazanfar, 2000. "The Economic Thought of Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali and St. Thomas Aquinas: Some Comparative Parallels and Links," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 857-888, Winter.
    16. Robert Sugden, 2005. "Spontaneous Order," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Economics of Rights, Co-operation and Welfare, chapter 1, pages 1-9, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Hurwicz, Leonid, 1973. "The Design of Mechanisms for Resource Allocation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 63(2), pages 1-30, May.
    18. Hochman, Oded, 1997. "More on scale economies and cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4-5), pages 373-397, August.
    19. Rosen, Sherwin, 1983. "Specialization and Human Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 43-49, January.
    20. Vernard Foley, 1974. "The Division of Labor in Plato and Smith," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 220-242, Summer.
    21. Stefan W. Schmitz, 2002. "Carl Menger’s “Money” and the Current Neoclassical Models of Money," Macroeconomics 0211001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    22. Charles P. Blitch, 1983. "Allyn Young on Increasing Returns," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 359-372, March.
    23. Hamid Hosseini, 1998. "Seeking the Roots of Adam Smith's Division of Labor in Medieval Persia," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 30(4), pages 653-681, Winter.
    24. Rosenberg, Nathan, 1976. "Another Advantage of the Division of Labor," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(4), pages 861-868, August.
    25. Groenewegen, P D, 1969. "Turgot and Adam Smith," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 16(3), pages 271-287, November.
    26. S. M. Ghazanfar & A. Azim Islahi, 1990. "Economic Thought of an Arab Scholastic: Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali (A.H. 450–505/A.D. 1058–1111)," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 381-403, Summer.
    27. Abdol Soofi, 1995. "Economics of Ibn Khaldun Revisited," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 27(2), pages 387-404, Summer.
    28. George Selgin, 2003. "Adaptive Learning and the Transition to Fiat Money," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(484), pages 147-165, January.
    29. Paul J. McNulty, 1975. "A Note on the Division of Labor in Plato and Smith," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 372-378, Fall.
    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. Cheng, Wenli & Yang, Xiaokai, 2004. "Inframarginal analysis of division of labor: A survey," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 137-174, October.
    2. Lewis S. Davis, 1998. "The Division of Labor, Coordination Costs and the Growth of Government," Departmental Working Papers 199803, Department of Economics, SUNY-Oswego, revised 01 Dec 1998.
    3. Titan Alon, 2018. "Earning More by Doing Less: Human Capital Specialization and the College Wage Premium," 2018 Meeting Papers 497, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Mei Wen & Stephen P. King, 2006. "Push Or Pull? The Relationship Between Development, Trade And Primary Resource Endowment," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Christis Tombazos & Xiaokai Yang (ed.), Inframarginal Contributions To Development Economics, chapter 20, pages 497-529, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Mileva, Elitza & Siegfried, Nikolaus, 2012. "Oil market structure, network effects and the choice of currency for oil invoicing," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 385-394.
    6. Haiwen Zhou, 2021. "Fixed Costs and the Division of Labor," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 22(1), pages 63-81, May.
    7. Davis, Lewis S., 2003. "The division of labor and the growth of government," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1217-1235, May.
    8. Xiaokai Yang & Dingsheng Zhang, 1999. "International Trade and Income Distribution," CID Working Papers 18, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    9. Zhang, Yongsheng & Zhao, Xueyan, 2004. "Testing the scale effect predicted by the Fujita-Krugman urbanization model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 207-222, October.
    10. repec:eee:labchp:v:1:y:1986:i:c:p:525-602 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Guangzhen Sun & Xiaokai Yang & Shuntian Yao, 1999. "Theoretical Foundation of Economic Development Based on Networking Decisions in the Competitive Market," CID Working Papers 16A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    12. repec:dau:papers:123456789/11496 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Wai-Man Liu & Xiaokai Yang, 2001. "Political Pluralism Versus Political Monopoly: Effects of Political Monopoly of the Ruling Elite on the Extent of the Market, Income Distribution, and Development," CID Working Papers 73A, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    14. William Luther, 2016. "Mises and the moderns on the inessentiality of money in equilibrium," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 1-13, March.
    15. Aurélien Nioche & Basile Garcia & Germain Lefebvre & Thomas Boraud & Nicolas P. Rougier & Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde, 2019. "Coordination over a unique medium of exchange under information scarcity," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-11, December.
    16. Alexander Salter & Solomon Stein, 2016. "Endogenous currency formation in an online environment: The case of Diablo II," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 53-66, March.
    17. Haiou Zhou, 2009. "Evolutionary Dynamics of the Market Equilibrium with Division of Labor∗," Monash Economics Working Papers 12-09, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    18. Davis, Lewis S., 2006. "Growing apart: The division of labor and the breakdown of informal institutions," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 75-91, March.
    19. Lewis S. Davis, 2003. "Toward a Unified Transaction Cost Theory of Economic Organization," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 159(3), pages 571-593, September.
    20. William Luther, 2014. "Evenly rotating economy: A new modeling technique for an old equilibrium construct," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 27(4), pages 403-417, December.
    21. Sik Kim, Young, 1996. "Money, barter, and costly information acquisition," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 119-142, February.
    22. Gianluigi Giustiziero, 2021. "Is the division of labor limited by the extent of the market? Opportunity cost theory with evidence from the real estate brokerage industry," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(7), pages 1344-1378, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L85 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Real Estate Services

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mos:moswps:2005-01. 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: Simon Angus (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dxmonau.html .

    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.