Ricardo's Economics
A General Equilibrium Theory of Distribution and Growth

Michio Morishima (Author)

9780521396882, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 25 October 1990

264 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.4 cm, 0.29 kg

"...thought-provoking....Morishima challenges the conventional representations of the Ricardian system, but from a highly mathematical angle....His multi-sector model of an agricultural economy with different grades of land is a useful corrective to the simple agricultural production functions which have been used till now." Andrea Maneschi, History of Political Economy

This book, together with Marx's Economic and Walras' Economics, completes a sequence of titles by Professor Morishima on the first generation of scientific economists. The author's assessment of Ricardo differs substantially from the established views adopted by economists and historians of economic thought. While economists such as Pasinetti, Caravale and Samuelson have concentrated on macroeconomic interpretations of Ricardo, and historians of economic thought have emphasised his labour theory of value, Morishima takes a different course. In this book the author concentrates on Ricardo's main work, The Principles, and shows that his economics is the prototype of mathematical economies without the symbols and formulae. Morishima then translates Ricardo's economics into mathematical language to find a general equilibrium system (very similar to Walras') concealed within. The analysis also contradicts the conventional view that marginalism emerged in opposition to classical economics, showing instead that Ricardian analysis is firmly based on marginalist principles, using prices, wages and profits rather than labour values. The book ends with a discussion of the historical character of economic theory and an attempt to specify the epoch of Ricardian economics.

Preface
Introduction
Part I. Prices and Rent: 1. Prices and the Ricardian marginalism
2. Differential rent
Part II. Wages and profits: 3. Wages, profits and general equilibrium
4. The equal rate of profit and exploitation
Part III. Growth: 5. Ricardian growth
6. International trade
Part IV. Say's Law: 7. Say's law of markets
8. Machinery
Part V. Three Paradigms Compared: 9. Towards an anti-Say's law regime
10. Ricardo, Walras and Keynes
11. The epoch of Ricardo's economics
Index.

Subject Areas: Economic theory & philosophy [KCA]