THE CO-ORDINATION OF THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION

by Philip H. Wicksteed

历史上的经典Economics series

Edited with a new introduction by Ian Steedman, former Research Professor in Economics, Department of Economics and Economic History, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Wicksteed's classic work, The Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution, has a central place within the development of marginal productivity theory. It claimed to explain all ‘factor returns’ on a unified basis and to show how 'marginal productivity factor pricing' just exhausted the total product.

Acclaim for this Classic in the History of Economics:

‘This is a gem of a little book that every economist may read. . . ’
– Peter C. Dooley, The Economic Journal

‘. . . this is a book that, for the importance of the text and the quality and richness of the Introduction, well deserves to be read. . .’
– Fabio Ranchetti, History of Economic Ideas

‘Philip H. Wicksteed's Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution (1894) is enough alone to insure for him a place of lasting importance in the history of economic thought. . . . its daring and its originality command the highest respect.’
– G.J. Stigler

‘P.H. Wicksteed, the purist of marginal theory.’
– P. Sraffa

‘[Wicksteed] set forth boldly the naked logic of the matter and also attempted a proof of the propositions – both of them guardedly affirmed but not proved by Marshall – that every “factor‘s” distributive share will under ideal conditions tend to equal its quantity multiplied by its marginal degree of productivity; and that those shares will tend to sum up to (to “exhaust”) the net product of each firm and, in the sphere of social aggregates, Marshall's "national dividend.’
– J.A. Schumpeter

‘Philip Wicksteed might well be regarded as the leading exponent among English economists of “neoclassical” distribution analysis in its purest form.’
– T.W. Hutchison