IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cambje/v33y2009i6p1065-1087.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Sraffian critique of the classical notion of centre of gravitation

Author

Listed:
  • Michel-Stéphane Dupertuis
  • Ajit Sinha

Abstract

In this paper we use insights from Sraffa's classic, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, to argue that the classical notion of 'centre of gravitation' is not a sound concept. The market mechanics of labour allocation through price signals and quantity adjustments, given effectual demands, do not lead to a 'centre of gravitation'. We work out all such possible market mechanisms, including the specific classical case, and show that the 'centre of gravitation' is a non-attractive point in all cases. Copyright The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Michel-Stéphane Dupertuis & Ajit Sinha, 2009. "A Sraffian critique of the classical notion of centre of gravitation," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 33(6), pages 1065-1087, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:33:y:2009:i:6:p:1065-1087
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/ben050
    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. Saverio M. Fratini & Alessia Naccarato, 2016. "The Gravitation of Market Prices as A Stochastic Process," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(4), pages 698-716, November.
    2. Saccal, Alessandro, 2024. "An alternative derivation of Sraffa’s fundamental equation with applications," MPRA Paper 120282, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Ajit Sinha & Michel-Stéphane Dupertuis, 2009. "Sraffa's System: Equal Rate of Profits and the Notion of Centre of Gravitation," Post-Print hal-00683159, HAL.
    4. Stefano Zambelli, 2018. "Production of commodities by means of commodities and non‐uniform rates of profits," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 69(4), pages 791-819, November.
    5. Geoffrey Harcourt & Peter Kriesler, 2012. "Introduction [to Handbook of Post-Keynesian Economics: Oxford University Press: USA]," Discussion Papers 2012-33, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    6. Vaona, Andrea, 2011. "Profit rate dynamics, income distribution, structural and technical change in Denmark, Finland and Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 247-268, September.

    More about this item

    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:oup:cambje:v:33:y:2009:i:6:p:1065-1087. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/cje .

    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.