Sraffa: Measurement and Aggregation

Abstract

My purpose is not an appraisal of Sraffa’s work or a probing into his aims or philosophy. I want to deal with a particular aspect. Sraffa’s book is concerned with measurement, concepts, aggregation. Indeed, a good deal of the intellectual difficulties which he has mastered are precisely in this field. He had to find a concept which would make it possible to deal with a multicommodity economy in the same way as if it were the corn economy (one commodity economy) of Ricardo. He found the concept in the standard commodity. It is an aggregate and yet a physical measure like corn, independent of prices and distribution. It may serve to measure consumption and investment, wages and profits alike. It is a macroeconomic concept derived from data for the individual commodities.

Schefold, B. and Bharadwaj, K. (eds) (1989) Essays on Piero Sraffa — Critical Perspectives on the Revival of Classical Theory, Unwin Hyman Limited, London; amended.