Essays on the Theory of Joint Production

260 Pages·1980·22.934 MB·English

by  Luigi L. Pasinetti (eds.)

Essays on the Theory of Joint Production
Also by Luigi L. Pasinetti
LECTURES ON THE THEORY OF PRODUCTION
GROWTH AND INCOME DISTRIBUTION: ESSAYS IN ECONOMIC
THEORY
ESSAYS ON THE
THEORY OF
JOINT PRODUCTION
edited by
Luigi L. Pasinetti
First published as Contributi alia
teoria della produzione congiunta
© 1977 by Societa editrice il Mulino,
Bologna
This edition © Luigi L. Pasinetti 1980
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1980 978-0-333-28105-5
AlJ rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without permission
First published in English 1980 by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Associated companies in Delhi
Dublin Hong Kong Johannesburg Lagos
Melbourne New York Singapore Tokyo
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Essays on the theory of joint production.
I. Production (Economic theory)
I. Pasinetti, Luigi Lodorico
338'.001 HB241
ISBN 978-1-349-05203-5 ISBN 978-1-349-05201-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-05201-1
This book is sold subject
to the standard conditions
of the Net Book Agreement
Contents
Preface ix
Notes on the Contributors xi
Introductory Note: Joint Production Luigi L. Pasinetti xii
1 Joint production as a general scheme xii
2 Difficulty of treating fixed capital as a 'stock' and possibility of
treating it as a 'flow' XII
3 A general scheme of flows xiv
4 Origins of the present work xv
5 Acknowledgements XVII
1 SratTa's Model for the Joint Production of Commodities by
Means of Commodities Carlo Felice Manara 1
1 Aim of this essay 1
2 Notation 2
3 Conditions of viability of the price system 4
4 A further condition for the viability of the price system 7
5 A case of non-existence of the 'standard system' 9
6 The distinction between basic and non-basic commodities 11
2 The Notion of Vertical Integration in Economic
Analysis Luigi L. Pasinetti 16
1 Production of commodities by means of commodities 17
2 Fixed capital goods with a simplifying assumption 18
3 An 'industry' 19
4 A 'vertically integrated sector' 19
5 Vertical integration in the theory of value and income
distribution 21
6 A particular unit of measurement for capital goods 24
7 Vertically integrated sectors for investment goods expressed in
physical units of vertically integrated productive capacity 25
8 Prices of investment goods expressed in units of vertically
integrated productive capacity 26
9 Vertically integrated sectors of higher order 27
10 Higher-order vertical integration and reduction of prices to a
sum of weighted quantities of labour 29
v
vi CONTENTS
11 A 'dual' exercise 31
12 Production with fixed capital goods in general 34
13 Generalisations and restrictions 35
14 Technical progress 38
15 The particular case of capital goods produced by labour alone 39
16 New analytical possibilities for dynamic analysis 42
3 Basics, Non-Basics and Joint Production Ian Steedman 44
1 Introduction 44
2 Pasinetti's direct and indirect capital matrix 45
3 Basics, non-basics and the H matrix 45
4 Prices and the rate of profit 47
5 Conclusion 48
4 A Note on Basics, Non-Basics and Joint Production
Luigi L. Pasinetti 51
1 The definitions of Manara and Steedman 51
2 A third definition 52
3 Comparisons with the case of single production 53
5 Prices, Rate of Profit and Life of Machines in Sraffa's
Fixed-Capital Model Paolo Varri 55
1 Introduction 55
2 The problem of machines in traditional economic theory 56
3 Multisector schemes 57
4 Fixed capital in linear multisector schemes 58
5 Fixed capital and joint production 61
6 The general system of prices 62
7 A simplified model 63
8 Solutions of the system with one productive activity using
machines 68
9 Solutions of the system with two productive activities using
machines 71
10 Solutions of the system with three or more productive activities
with machines 76
11 Some economic implications of the preceding analysis 79
12 The case of negative prices in SrafTa's scheme 81
13 Life of machines and rate of profit: the 'res witching' of activities 83
14 Two particular solutions for the system of prices: the 'standard
system' and the 'labour values' 83
15 Extensions and concluding remarks 84
CONTENTS vii
6 Fixed Capital in SratIa's Theoretical Scheme
Salvatore Baldone 88
1 Introduction 88
2 Some remarks on the problem of fixed capital 88
3 Fixed capital and joint production: the price system 91
4 Positivity of the maximum wage rate 97
5 Existence and positivity of the maximum rate of profit 98
6 Remarks about the wage-profit relationship in the case of
production with fixed capital 101
7 Conditions for the positivity of prices of old machines 102
8 Distribution of income and economic life of the machine 106
9 A different machine for every productive sector 107
10 Further generalisations: joint use of different types of machines
and mechanisation of the industries producing durable
instruments 113
11 Monotonicity of the wage-profit frontier 115
12 The standard system and the standard commodity 119
13 Remarks on the asymmetry of prices and multipliers 122
14 The problem of the reduction of prices to dated quantities of
labour in the case of production with fixed capital 124
15 Concluding remarks on the problem of depreciation 128
7 Fixed Capital as a Joint Product and the Analysis of
Accumulation with DitIerent Forms of Technical
Progress Bertram Schefold 138
Introduction 138
Part I 140
2 Circulating capital and joint-production systems 140
Part II 145
3 Machines 145
4 Integrated systems and finished goods 150
5 Prices of intermediate goods (old machines) 156
6 Reduction to dated quantities of labour, the 'centre', and
switches of technique 161
7 Roundabout processes 168
8 Truncation theorems 171
9 Remarks on the truncation theorems, the choice of
techniques and duality 179
10 Reconsidering some assumptions 188
VllI CONTENTS
Part III 190
11 Simple forms of technical progress: saving of labour, mechani-
sation and saving of raw material 190
12 Other forms of technical progress and Marx's temporary
retreat to Ricardo 202
13 Profitability and technical progress 208
8 Rent, Income Distribution, and Orders of Efficiency and
Rentability Alberto Quadrio-Curzio 218
The present essay 218
2 The system of prices and the distribution of income 220
3 The price-wage-profit sub-system 221
4 The rents sub-system 222
5 Four problems 223
6 The order of efficiency 224
7 The order of rentability 227
8 Induced changes in income distribution 230
9 Autonomous changes in income distribution 232
10 Concluding remarks 238
Index 241
Preface
The present work appeared first in Italian as Contributi alia teoria della
produzione congiunta (Bologna: II Mulino, 1977). The essays here
collected - with the exception of those, by Schefold, Steedman and
Pasinetti, on vertical integration, which were written in English to begin
with - have been translated into English for the present edition by Richard
Dury, with revisions by the authors. Financial support from the CNR,
Rome (CT 78.01826.10) is gratefully acknowledged.
Milan
January 1979 L.L.P.
ix