IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/trn/utwpde/0702.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sraffa's Mathematical Economics - A Constructive Interpretation

Author

Listed:
  • K. Vela Velupillai

Abstract

The claim in this paper is that Sraffa employed a rigorous logic of mathematical reasoning in his book, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (PCC), in such a way that the existence proofs were constructive. This is the kind of mathematics that was prevalent at the beginning of the 19th century, which was dominated by the concrete, the constructive and the algorithmic. It is, therefore, completely consistent with the economics of the 19th century, which was the fulcrum around which the economics of PCC was conceived.

Suggested Citation

  • K. Vela Velupillai, 2007. "Sraffa's Mathematical Economics - A Constructive Interpretation," Department of Economics Working Papers 0702, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
  • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwpde:0702
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.unitn.it/files/2_07_velupillai.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Debreu, Gerard, 1984. "Economic Theory in the Mathematical Mode," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 267-278, June.
    2. Doris M. Iklé, 1972. "A New Approach to the Index Number Problem," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 86(2), pages 188-211.
    3. Douglas Cleveland, 1985. "Analysis," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(4), pages 50-53, September.
    4. Hahn, Frank, 1982. "The Neo-Ricardians," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 6(4), pages 353-374, December.
    5. Debreu, Gerard, 1986. "Theoretical Models: Mathematical Forms and Economic Content," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(6), pages 1259-1270, November.
    6. Guglielmo Chiodi, 1998. "On Non-self-replacing States," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(1), pages 97-107, February.
    7. Smale, Stephen, 1976. "Dynamics in General Equilibrium Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 66(2), pages 288-294, May.
    8. Sen, Amartya K, 1974. "On Some Debates in Capital Theory," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 41(163), pages 328-335, August.
    9. Desai, Meghnad & Ormerod, Paul, 1998. "Richard Goodwin: A Short Appreciation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1431-1435, September.
    10. Debreu, Gerard, 1991. "The Mathematization of Economic Theory," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(1), pages 1-7, March.
    11. Peter Newman, 1962. "Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 98(I), pages 58-75, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bartholo, R.S. & Cosenza, C.A.N. & Doria, F.A. & de Lessa, C.T.R., 2009. "Can economic systems be seen as computing devices?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 72-80, May.
    2. K. Vela Velupillai, 2007. "Variations On The Theme Of Conning In Mathematical Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 466-505, July.

    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. K. Vela Velupillai, 2007. "Variations On The Theme Of Conning In Mathematical Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 466-505, July.
    2. K. Vela Velupillai, 2008. "The Mathematization of Macroeconomics: A Recursive Revolution," Department of Economics Working Papers 0807, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    3. K. Vela Velupillai, 2007. "Variations on the Theme of Conning in Mathematical Economics," Department of Economics Working Papers 0703, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    4. Espinosa, Miguel & Rondon, Carlos & Romero, Mauricio, 2012. "The use of mathematics in economics and its effect on a scholar's academic career," MPRA Paper 41341, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. T.A. Boylan & P.F. O'Gorman, 2007. "Axiomatization And Formalism In Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(3), pages 426-446, July.
    6. Miguel A. Duran, 2007. "Mathematical Needs and Economic Interpretations," Contributions to Political Economy, Oxford University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-16.
    7. Gilbert Faccarello, 1976. "Bibliographie," Cahiers d'Économie Politique, Programme National Persée, vol. 3(1), pages 243-260.
    8. Annie-Lou Cot & Jérôme Lallement, 2006. "1859-1959 : de Walras à Debreu, un siècle d'équilibre général," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 57(3), pages 377-388.
    9. Nathalie BERTA, 2000. "Le marché dans les modèles de Gérard Debreu," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 2000033, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    10. Turan Yay & Huseyin Tastan, 2010. "Invisible Hand in the Process of Making Economics or on the Method and Scope of Economics," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 57(1), pages 61-83, March.
    11. Jean-Sébastien Lenfant, 2018. "Substitutability and the Quest for Stability," Working Papers hal-01764115, HAL.
    12. M. Ali Khan, 1991. "On the Languages of Markets," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 30(4), pages 503-549.
    13. Bildirici, Melike E. & Sonustun, Bahri, 2021. "Chaotic behavior in gold, silver, copper and bitcoin prices," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    14. Hajargasht, Gholamreza & Rao, D.S. Prasada, 2019. "Multilateral index number systems for international price comparisons: Properties, existence and uniqueness," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 36-47.
    15. Andrew M. Isserman, 1993. "Lost In Space? On The History, Status, And Future Of Regional Science (Presidential Address, April 4, 1992)," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 1-50, Summer.
    16. Gaël Giraud & Céline Rochon, 2010. "Transition to Equilibrium in International Trades," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00657038, HAL.
    17. Arthur Charpentier & Emmanuel Flachaire & Antoine Ly, 2017. "Econom\'etrie et Machine Learning," Papers 1708.06992, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2018.
    18. Edgar Villa, 2013. "Una Revisión Moderna de las Teorías de Precios de Ricardo y Jevons," Vniversitas Económica 10676, Universidad Javeriana - Bogotá.
    19. Ajit Sinha, 2015. "A Reflection on the Samuelson-Garegnani Debate," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-48, September.
    20. Andrés Marroquín & Julio H. Cole, 2015. "Economical writing (or, “Think Hemingway”)," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(1), pages 251-259, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Existence Proofs; Constructive Mathematics; Algorithmic Mathematics; Mathematical Economics; Standard System.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B23 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Econometrics; Quantitative and Mathematical Studies
    • B24 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist; Scraffian
    • B31 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought: Individuals - - - Individuals
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian

    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:trn:utwpde:0702. 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: Luciano Andreozzi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/detreit.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.