Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Jan Horst Keppler
Author-Email:
Author-Workplace-Name: Centre de géopolitique de l’énergie et des matières premières (CGEMP); 
Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne - Pôle d’histoire des analyses et des représentations économiques (PHARE)
Title: Piero Sraffa and Attilio da Empoli: Competing Solutions for the Crisis of the Theory of the Firm in the Early 20th Century
Abstract: In the first third of the 20th century, economic theory develops the key features of the modern theory
of the firm, which determine also the essential elements of the theories of value and competition.
Italian economists fully participate in a discussion at times confusing that takes place on the backdrop
of Marshall’s over-ambitious and ultimately unsustainable attempt to integrate increasing returns to
scale into a framework of static competition. In this context, Piero Sraffa and Attilio da Empoli, offer
clear-cut albeit opposed alternatives to emerge from the ambivalences of the Marshallian heritage.
Of similar age and ambition, both were driven by a thirst for logical purity which only extreme solutions
were able to satisfy. Apart from a brief foray into monopolistic competition theory, Piero Sraffa
developed a long-run vision of perfect competition under constant returns to scale with complete
malleability of factors, which allows the establishment of static equilibrium. Searching for conformity
with immediate experience, Attilio da Empoli concentrates instead on the shortest of short-runs,
in which the momentary fixity of factors creates transitory equilibria, which continuously point towards
‘ultra-marginal’ phenomena. This article aims to bring out the defining characteristics of their
work in the context of the broader contribution of Italian theorists.
Classification-JEL: B13; B21; B31; D24; D46
Keywords: theory of the firm; theory of value; theory of competition; constant and increasing returns to scale; comparative statics and dynamics; Marshallian economics
Journal: Il Pensiero Economico Italiano
Pages: 51-67
Volume: 15
Issue: 2
Year: 2007
File-URL: http://www.libraweb.net/articoli.php?chiave=200706302&rivista=63
Handle: RePEc:pei:journl:v:15:y:2007:2:3:p:51-67