Abstract
Piero Sraffa developed the device of a ‘standard commodity’ subsequent to the formulation of the basic propositions presented in his Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. The device is not used to prove that the relationship between prices and distribution may be determined from the classical data of size and composition of output, conditions of reproduction and an exogeneously given distributive variable (the real wage or the rate of profit), but rather to illustrate and clarify the form of that relationship. It is therefore an ancilliary device, a hilfskonstruktion, designed to ‘reveal what otherwise might be hidden’.
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Bibliography
Garegnani, P. 1960. II Capitale nelle teorie della distribuzione. Milan: Giuffrè.
Newman, P. 1962. Production of commodities by means of commodities. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Statistik 98: 58–75.
Schefold, B. 1971. Theorie der Kuppelproduktion. PhD. Basel, privately printed.
Sraffa, P. 1960. Production of commodities by means of commodities: Prelude to a critique of economic theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Eatwell, J. (2018). Standard Commodity. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1570
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1570
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