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Skilled Labor in the Classical tradition

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  • Anwar Shaikh

    (Department of Economics, New School for Social Research)

Abstract

The treatment of skills has always been a problem within the classical tradition. Smith, Ricardo and Marx explicitly note that labor of different qualities must be reduced to a common standard. On the argument that relative wages largely reflect the qualitative differences among types of labor, they all propose to use relative wages as proxies for qualities. Smith identifies two sets of factors underlying relative wages: those specific to the type of employment itself, and those arising from political interventions. The former case in turn contains compensation for the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the type of work, its risk and volatility, its required degree of trust, and the difficulty and cost of acquiring the necessary skills. This paper focuses on the skill issue alone in order to compare it to the orthodox notion of human capital as a principal factor in the determination of relative wages.

Suggested Citation

  • Anwar Shaikh, 2018. "Skilled Labor in the Classical tradition," Working Papers 1801, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:new:wpaper:1801
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    File URL: http://www.economicpolicyresearch.org/econ/2018/NSSR_WP_012018.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    4. Lefteris Tsoulfidis, 2008. "Price-value deviations: further evidence from input-output data of Japan," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(6), pages 707-724.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kyle Glenn, 2021. "Social Labor vs Human Capital: Competing Theories of Skills," Working Papers 2115, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    2. Anwar Shaikh & Kyle Glenn, 2018. "The Classical Treatment of Skilled Labor," Working Papers 1811, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.

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    Keywords

    Skilled labor; Classical economics;

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