Marshall on Ricardo

In spite of, or perhaps more precisely because of his many contributions to the economic theory of production, Luigi Pasinetti has written a number of interesting and important contributions to the history of the subject. These started with his very influential mathematical formulation of the Ricardian system (Pasinetti, 1960). By way of introduction to his major theoretical contributions, Pasinetti (1977, 1981) provided the historical background of the foundations on which he built his own analysis of production, structural change and economic growth. These introductions invariably contrast the classical tradition, in the main exemplified by the work of Ricardo, with the post-1870s marginalist tradition. In a more detailed historical framework, Pasinetti (1986) developed this theme further by examining the theory of value as a source of alternative paradigms in economic analysis. These alternative approaches are reflected in the classical labour model focussing on production, and the pure exchange or pure preference model which came into its own in the post-1870s marginalist period.