IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/hop/hopeec/v41y2009i2p219-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Trade-Off between Rigor and Relevance: Sraffian Economics as a Case in Point

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Blaug

Abstract

Piero Sraffa published Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities in 1960, and this enigmatic little book invited explanations of its meaning, particularly as its subtitle, Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory, held out hopes of an ambitious research program. In the almost half-century since its publication, it has attracted a small following, particularly in Europe, but it has failed to make much of an impact on American academic economics. This is odd because Sraffian economics in many ways satisfies the relentless concern of mainstream American economics with mathematical rigor. As a species of general equilibrium theory, Sraffian economics is indeed rigoros but it appears to be irrelevant to the sort of issues that concern modern economists.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Blaug, 2009. "The Trade-Off between Rigor and Relevance: Sraffian Economics as a Case in Point," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 41(2), pages 219-247, Summer.
    • Handle: RePEc:hop:hopeec:v:41:y:2009:i:2:p:219-247
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hope.dukejournals.org/content/41/2/219.full.pdf+html
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. John S.L. McCombie, 2011. "'Cantabrigian Economics' and the aggregate production function," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 8(1), pages 165-182.
    2. Heinz D. Kurz & Neri Salvadori, 2011. "In Favor of Rigor and Relevance: A Reply to Mark Blaug," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 607-616, Fall.
    3. Anthony Brewer, 2012. "Mark Blaug, 1927--2011," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(3), pages 475-480, June.
    4. Marcel Boumans, 2013. "An unrepentant Lakatosian," Chapters, in: Marcel Boumans & Matthias Klaes (ed.), Mark Blaug: Rebel with Many Causes, chapter 13, pages 177-190, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Richard G. Lipsey, 2017. "Generality Versus Context Specificity: First, Second and Third Best in Theory and Policy," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 167-177, May.
    6. Andrea Salanti, 2013. "Between the Scylla of Whig history and the Charybdis of methodological vacuum," Chapters, in: Marcel Boumans & Matthias Klaes (ed.), Mark Blaug: Rebel with Many Causes, chapter 14, pages 191-207, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Stirati, Antonella, 2014. "Real wages in the business cycle: an unresolved conflict between theory and facts in mainstream macroeconomics," MPRA Paper 53743, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Roger E. Backhouse, 2013. "Understanding Mark Blaug's attitude towards Sraffian economics," Chapters, in: Marcel Boumans & Matthias Klaes (ed.), Mark Blaug: Rebel with Many Causes, chapter 11, pages 146-158, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Luca Timponelli, 2021. "From Pareto to Bridgman: The Operational Turn of Samuelson, Sraffa and Leontief," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 55(1), pages 303-328, June.
    10. Rosselli, Annalisa & Trabucchi, Paolo, 2019. "Sraffa, the ‘marginal’ method and change," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 334-340.
    11. Antonella Stirati, 2016. "Real wages in the business cycle and the theory of income distribution: an unresolved conflict between theory and facts in mainstream macroeconomics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 40(2), pages 639-661.
    12. Jesus Felipe & John S.L. McCombie, 2013. "The Aggregate Production Function and the Measurement of Technical Change," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1975.
    13. Pier Luigi Porta, 2013. "What remains of Sraffa's economics," Working Papers 242, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised May 2013.
    14. Kurz, Heinz D., 2018. "Stigler on Ricardo," Centro Sraffa Working Papers CSWP27, Centro di Ricerche e Documentazione "Piero Sraffa".
    15. Birolo, Adriano, 2010. "La ricerca economica in Italia tra pluralismo e monismo: i giovani economisti negli ultimi trent’anni [The Italian economic research between pluralism and monism: the young economists in the last t," MPRA Paper 27219, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Richard G. Lipsey, 2013. "Some contentious issues in theory and policy in memory of Mark Blaug," Chapters, in: Marcel Boumans & Matthias Klaes (ed.), Mark Blaug: Rebel with Many Causes, chapter 6, pages 31-62, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Thiemann, Matthias & Aldegwy, Mohamed & Ibrocevic, Edin, 2016. "Understanding the shift from micro to macro-prudential thinking: A discursive network analysis," SAFE Working Paper Series 136, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    18. Aldegwy, Mohamed & Thiemann, Matthias, 2016. "How economics got it wrong: Formalism, equilibrium modelling and pseudo-optimization in banking regulatory studies," SAFE Working Paper Series 138, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    19. Kemp-Benedict, Eric, 2014. "A Kaleckian Model with Intermediate Goods," MPRA Paper 57076, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Piero Sraffa;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hop:hopeec:v:41:y:2009:i:2:p:219-247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Center for the History of Political Economy Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.dukeupress.edu/Catalog/ViewProduct.php?viewby=journal&productid=45614 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.