Multiple Product Techniques with Properties of Single Product Systems

Abstract

In the context of Sraffa systems most economists tend to avoid joint production and prefer to discuss single product systems because of their simple and elegant properties which have often been represented under the familiar headings of activity analysis or linear economic systems outside the circle of the Sraffa school. It is true that joint production raises a number of intricate problems; no straightforward economic assumptions are known which could be made to ensure that prices in joint production systems are positive at a given rate of profit prior to truncation, the distinction between basics and non-basics is not easily maintained in the presence of joint production, etc. Sraffa (1960) has hinted at many of the problems involved. I believe, however, that it is possible to characterise those instances of joint production systems which retain some of the simple properties of single product systems, to distinguish them analytically from those with more paradoxical properties and to relate the paradoxes appearing in the theoretical model to obstacles to the competitive formation of prices in the real world.

First published in Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie (Journal of Economics), 38 (1978), pp. 29–53.