Retrospectives Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?

Abstract

In "The Production Function and the Theory of Capital, " Joan Robinson (1953-1954 . . . the production function has been a powerful instrument of miseducation. The student of economic theory is taught to write Q ϭ f (L, K ) where L is a quantity of labor, K a quantity of capital and Q a rate of output of commodities. He is instructed to assume all workers alike, and to measure L in man-hours of labor; he is told something about the index-number problem in choosing a unit of output; and then he is hurried on to the next question, in the hope that he will forget to ask in what units K is measured. Before he ever does ask, he has become a professor, and so sloppy habits of thought are handed on from one generation to the next.

Quantitative Methods in Comparative Education and Other Disciplines: are they valid?

“…Each good and service may have a production function, meaning some mathematical regularity in how inputs like land, labor, capital, and technology combine to produce televisions, yachts, insurance policies, hamburgers, etc. However, since there is no physical process by which aggregate GNP is produced, nor, from this perspective, is there some way to aggregate and measure physical capital, trying to specify an aggregate production function is seen as nonsensical (Cohen;Harcourt, 2003). Guerrien and Gun (2015, p. 100) note that Paul Samuelson, Nobel laureate in economics, pointed out that aggregate production functions wrongly offer "[…] a statistical test of an accounting identity (which is by definition always true)".…”

A termelékenységszámítás néhány koncepcionális kérdése és statisztikai vonatkozása

“…(Ezért szokták a bérleti díjat használói költségnek is nevezni.) Amit ismerünk, az az új eszközök 13 A nézeteltérés utóéletét tárgyalja Cohen-Harcourt [2003].…”

Piketty, ekonomija i sociologija: Znanstvena i politička agenda o nejednakosti

“…Ovdje se pojavljuju duhovi tzv. "kejmbridžske kontroverze o kapitalu" (za uvod vidi Burmeister, 2000;Cohen i Harcourt, 2003). Rasprava je dobila ime po tome što su se obje stane nalazile u Cambridgeu: neoklasični ekonomisti (Paul Samuelson i Robert Solow) na MIT-u u Cambridgeu u Massachusettsu, a heterodoksni ekonomisti (Joan Robinson i Piero Sraffa) u engleskom Cambridgeu.…”