Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T01:21:41.187Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

IS THERE ANOTHER, QUITE DIFFERENT, “ADAM SMITH PROBLEM”?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2014

A. M. C. Waterman
A. M. C. Waterman*
Affiliation:
Fellow of St John’s College, Winnipeg, and Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Manitoba; e-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Division of labor is thought to imply increasing returns to scale, which in turn implies that wages rise continually with economic growth. Yet the price theory of Wealth of Nations rests upon the assumption that the “natural” price of labor (and capital) is determined at any steady-state rate of balanced growth. There would seem, therefore, to be an irreconcilable contradiction between Smith’s exposition of the division of labor in Book I, chapters 1 to 3, and his price theory as set out in Book I, chapters 6 to 9.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , December 2014 , pp. 401 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

WN stands for Smith, Adam. [1776] 1976. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Exact photographic reproduction of the foregoing in Liberty Classics, Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981. All references to this source list book number, chapter number, and paragraph number.Google Scholar
Arrow, Kenneth J. 2000. “Increasing Returns: Historiographic Issues and Path Dependence.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 7 (2): 171–180.Google Scholar
Arrow, Kenneth J., and Debreu, Gérard. 1954. “Existence of an Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy.” Econometrica 22: 265–290.Google Scholar
Barkai, Haim. 1969. “A Formal Outline of a Smithian Growth Model.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 83: 396–414.Google Scholar
Baumol, William, with Turvey, R.. 1951. Economic Dynamics. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Buchanan, James M., and Yoon, Jong J., eds. 1994. The Return to Increasing Returns. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchanan, James M., and Yoon, Jong J.. 1999. “Generalized Increasing Returns, Euler’s Theorem, and Competitive Equilibrium.” History of Political Economy 31 (3): 511–523.Google Scholar
Cantillon, Richard. [1755] 1931. Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général. Edited and translated by Higgs, H.. London: Macmillan for the Royal Economic Society.Google Scholar
Daly, Herman. 1977. Steady-State Economics: The Economics of Biophysical Equilibrium and Moral Growth. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Domar, Evsey. 1946. “Capital Expansion, Rate of Growth and Employment.” Econometrica 14: 137–147.Google Scholar
Eltis, Walter. 1975. “Adam Smith’s Theory of Economic Growth. In Skinner, A. S. and Wilson, T., eds., Essays on Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon, pp. 426–454.Google Scholar
Eltis, Walter. 2000. The Classical Theory of Economic Growth. Second edition. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Harrod, Sir Roy F. 1939. “An Essay in Dynamic Theory.” The Economic Journal 49: 14–33.Google Scholar
Heilbroner, Robert Louis 1973. “The Paradox of Progress: Decline and Decay in The Wealth of Nations.” Journal of the History of Ideas 34 (2): 243–262.Google Scholar
Hollander, Samuel. 1973. The Economics of Adam Smith. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollander, Samuel. 1980. “On Professor Samuelson’s Canonical Classical Model of Political Economy.” Journal of Economic Literature 18: 559–574.Google Scholar
Hollander, Samuel. 1997. The Economics of Thomas Robert Malthus. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Jevons, W. Stanley. 1866. “A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society 29: 282–287.Google Scholar
Jevons, W. Stanley. 1871. The Theory of Political Economy. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Johansen, Leif. 1967. “A Classical Model of Economic Growth.” In Feinstein, C. H., ed., Socialism, Capitalism and Economic Growth: Essays Presented to Maurice Dobb. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 13–29.Google Scholar
Kaldor, Nicholas. 1972. “The Irrelevance of Equilibrium Economics.” The Economic Journal 82: 1237–1255.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurdas, Cigdem. 1988. “The ‘Whig Historian’ on Adam Smith: Paul Samuelson’s Canonical Classical Model.” History of Economics Society Bulletin 10 (1): 13–23.Google Scholar
Lowe, A. 1954. “The Classical Theory of Economic Growth.” Social Research 21 (2): 127–158.Google Scholar
Malthus, T. Robert. [1820] 1989. Principles of Political Economy. Two volumes. Variorum Edition. Edited by Pullen, John. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for the Royal Economic Society.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. [1887] 1954. Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Moscow: Progress Publishers.Google Scholar
Menger, Carl. 1871. Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre. Wien: Braumüller.Google Scholar
Negishi, Takashi. 1989. History of Economic Theory. Amsterdam: North Holland.Google Scholar
Richardson, George Barclay. 1975. “Adam Smith on Competition and Increasing Returns.” In Skinner, A. S. and Wilson, T., eds., Essays on Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon, Pt II, ch. IV.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Nathan. 1965. “Adam Smith on the Division of Labour: Two Views or One?” Economica 32: 127–139.Google Scholar
Rosenbluth, Gideon. 1969. “A Note on Labour, Wages and Rent in Smith’s Theory of Value.” Canadian Journal of Economics 2: 308–314.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1947. Foundations of Economic Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1977. “A Modern Theorist’s Vindication of Adam Smith.” American Economic Review 41: 42–49.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1978. “The Canonical Classical Model of Political Economy.” Journal of Economic Literature 16: 1415–1434.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1988. “Keeping Whig History Honest.” History of Economics Society Bulletin 10 (2): 161–167.Google Scholar
Samuelson, Paul A. 1997. Letter to D. N. Winch, 29 May.Google Scholar
Skinner, Andrew S., and Wilson, Thomas, eds. 1975. Essays on Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Skinner, Quentin. 1969. “Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas.” History and Theory 8: 3–53.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, Joseph E., and Uzawa, Hirofumi, eds. 1969. Readings in the Modern Theory of Economic Growth. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Solow, Robert M. 1956. “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 70: 65–94.Google Scholar
Spengler, Joseph John. 1959. “Adam Smith’s Theory of Economic Growth.” Southern Economic Journal 25 (4): 397–415; and 26 (1): 1–12.Google Scholar
Sraffa, Piero. 1926. “The Laws of Returns under Competitive Conditions.” The Economic Journal 36: 535–550.Google Scholar
Swan, Trevor Winchester. 1956. “Economic Growth and Capital Accumulation.” Economic Record 32: 334–361.Google Scholar
Thweatt, William O. 1957. “A Diagrammatic Presentation of Adam Smith’s Growth Model.” Social Research 24: 227–230.Google Scholar
Tribe, Keith. 2008. “‘Das Adam Smith Problem’ and the Origins of Modern Smith Scholarship.” History of European Ideas 34 (4): 514–525.Google Scholar
Walras, Léon. 1874. Éléments d'économie politique pure, ou théorie de la richesse sociale. Lausanne: Corbaz.Google Scholar
Warsh, David. 2006. Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations: A Story of Economic Discovery. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Waterman, A. M. C. 1996. “Why William Paley was ‘The First of the Cambridge Economists.’” Cambridge Journal of Economics 20: 673–686.Google Scholar
Waterman, A. M. C. 2001. “Notes Towards an Un-Canonical, Pre-Classical Model of Political Œconomy.” In Forget, E. and Peart, S., eds., Reflecting on the Canon in Economics: Essays in Honor of Samuel Hollander. London: Routledge, pp. 27–42.Google Scholar
Waterman, A. M. C. 2009. “Adam Smith’s Macrodynamic Conception of the Natural Wage.” History of Economics Review 49: 45–60.Google Scholar
Waterman, A. M. C. 2012. “Adam Smith and Malthus on High Wages.” European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 19 (3): 409–429.Google Scholar
Waterman, A. M. C. 2013. “‘The Merchants of Cadiz and Lisbon’: Parsimony, the Rate of Profit and Accumulation in Wealth of Nations.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 35: 63–76.Google Scholar
West, Edwin George. 1964. “Adam Smith’s Two Views on the Division of Labour.” Economica 31: 23–32.Google Scholar
Yang, Xiaokai. 2003. Economic Development and the Division of Labor. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Young, Allyn A. 1928. “Increasing Returns and Economic Progress.” The Economic Journal 38: 527–542.Google Scholar