Piero Sraffa
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Piero Sraffa FBA (5 August 1898 – 3 September 1983) was an influential Italian political economist who served as lecturer of
economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
at the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
. His book ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'' is taken as founding the neo-Ricardian school of economics.


Early life

Sraffa was born in
Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...
,
Kingdom of Italy The Kingdom of Italy (, ) was a unitary state that existed from 17 March 1861, when Victor Emmanuel II of Kingdom of Sardinia, Sardinia was proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, proclaimed King of Italy, until 10 June 1946, when the monarchy wa ...
, to Angelo Sraffa (1865–1937) and Irma Sraffa (née Tivoli) (1873–1949), a wealthy Italian Jewish couple. His father was a professor in
commercial law Commercial law (or business law), which is also known by other names such as mercantile law or trade law depending on jurisdiction; is the body of law that applies to the rights, relations, and conduct of Legal person, persons and organizations ...
and later dean at the Bocconi University in
Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...
. Despite being raised as a practising Jew, Sraffa later became an agnostic.


Early career

Due to his father's activity, the young Piero followed him during his academic wanderings ( University of Parma,
University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...
and
University of Turin The University of Turin (Italian language, Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Torino'', UNITO) is a public university, public research university in the city of Turin, in the Piedmont (Italy), Piedmont region of Italy. It is one of the List ...
), where he met
Antonio Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...
(leader of Communist Party of Italy). They became close friends, partly due to their shared political views. Sraffa was also in contact with Filippo Turati, perhaps the most important leader of the
Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Social democracy, social democratic and Democratic socialism, democratic socialist political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the longest-living parti ...
, whom he allegedly met and frequently visited in
Rapallo Rapallo ( , , ) is a ''comune'' (municipality) in the Metropolitan City of Genoa, in the Italy, Italian region of Liguria. As of 2017 it had 29,778 inhabitants. It lies on the Ligurian Sea coast, on the Tigullio Gulf, between Portofino and ...
, where his family had a holiday villa. At the age of 18, in the spring of 1917, he began military service as an officer of the Military Engineer Corps, under the command of the First Army as rear-guard. From the end of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
(November 1918) until March 1920 he was a member of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the violations of the right of the people committed by the enemy. The military period corresponded to the "university" one; some anecdotes tell of exams done effortlessly wearing the officer uniform. He graduated in November 1920 with a thesis on inflation in Italy during the period of the Great War. His tutor was Luigi Einaudi, one of the most important Italian economists and later a president of the Italian Republic. From 1921 to 1922, he studied at the
London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...
. During this period, at
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
, he met twice
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
, who invited him to a collaboration. This request led Sraffa to write two articles about the Italian banking system published in 1922, the first (''The Bank Crisis in Italy'') in '' The Economic Journal'' (edited by Keynes) and the second (''The current situation of Italian banks'') in the supplement of the newspaper ''Manchester Guardian'' (now ''The Guardian''). Keynes also entrusted Sraffa with the Italian edition of his '' A Tract on Monetary Reform''. The meeting with Keynes was undoubtedly a fundamental turning point in Sraffa's career. In 1922 Sraffa was appointed director of the provincial labour department in Milan, where he frequented socialist circles. In this period he made friends with Carlo Rosselli and Raffaele Mattioli, both assistants of Luigi Einaudi at the time. The
march on Rome The March on Rome () was an organized mass demonstration in October 1922 which resulted in Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party (, PNF) ascending to power in the Kingdom of Italy. In late October 1922, Fascist Party leaders planned a march ...
, with the consequent seizure of power by Mussolini, was an event destined to affect deeply his future. His father Angelo was the target of aggression by a fascist squad and received two very threatening telegrams by Mussolini himself who required a public retraction by Piero on the content of the second article published in the ''Manchester Guardian''. Piero did not write a retraction. In May 1924 his friend Antonio Gramsci, who found himself stuck firstly in Moscow and then in Vienna due to the advent to power of fascism, returned to Rome on his election to Parliament. From now on the relations between the two intellectuals intensified. On 26 November 1926 Italian Parliament approved the law "defence of the state", thus giving rise to the totalitarian state. On 8 November 1926, Antonio Gramsci was arrested. During Gramsci's incarceration, Sraffa supplied books and the material, literally pens and paper, with which Gramsci would write his '' Prison Notebooks''.


Major works


The laws of productivity under competitive conditions

In 1925, Sraffa wrote about returns to scale and
perfect competition In economics, specifically general equilibrium theory, a perfect market, also known as an atomistic market, is defined by several idealizing conditions, collectively called perfect competition, or atomistic competition. In Economic model, theoret ...
. In the 1926 article, "The Laws of Returns under Competitive Conditions", published in ''The Economic Journal'', Sraffa resumes and develops his work of 1925 to show the inconsistency of the Marshallian theory of partial equilibrium, according to which, in competition for each good: # The equilibrium price is determined by the intersection of the demand curve and that of the supply. The supply curve is symmetrical to that of the demand. # As the quantity produced by the firm increases, there are initially increasing returns and, beyond a certain point, decreasing returns. Sraffa notes that the law of decreasing returns and that of increasing returns have different origins and areas of application (and therefore cannot explain the shape of the same supply curve): the law of diminishing returns was originally applied to the entire economy and resulted from the scarcity of the agricultural land as a mean of production (the rent theory of
David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...
); while the law of increasing returns applied to the individual firm and resulted from the benefits of division of labour. The first one allowed for the study of the laws of distribution, and the second those of production. "Nobody, until comparatively recently - Sraffa writes - had thought of unifying these two tendencies in one single law of non-proportional productivity, and considering this as one of the bases of the theory of price" Sraffa observes that the idea of considering the law of non-proportional returns as a basis for the price theory arose, for analogy, only after the study of decreasing utility had drawn attention to the relationship between the price and the quantity consumed. In fact, "if the cost of production of every unit of the commodity under consideration did not vary with variations in quantity produced the symmetry would be broken, the price would be determined exclusively by the expenses of production and demand would be unable to have any influence on it at all". The difficulties of the system that could, in short, be defined as the cross of the supply and demand curves firstly depend on the heterogeneity of the assumptions on which these two different tendencies are based. Decreasing returns and increasing costs are caused by the limited availability of some input which prevents all inputs from varying in optimal proportion. In other words, if an input is limited in quantity, a rise in production levels brings about a less efficient proportion among inputs with a fall in productivity. By contrast, the tendency toward decreasing costs stems from variations in the quantity of all inputs, and therefore they may occur only when there are no constant factors. A second difficulty stems from the fact that, as Sraffa notes, in the neoclassical theory of prices the equilibrium of the individual firm is determined on the basis of cost variations deriving from small increases in its production (marginalist theory) and taking the situation unchanged in other companies of the same industry and the entire economy, following the hypothesis of ''ceteris paribus'', i.e. other conditions being equal. Sraffa highlights that the possibility of applying the hypothesis of increasing costs to the supply curve is limited to the rare cases in which a considerable part of the supply of input is employed for the production of only one commodity. However, in general, each input is employed by a certain number of industries that produce different goods. As for increasing returns and decreasing costs, Marshall himself notes that external economies can hardly be attributed clearly to a specific industry, but they are of considerable interest to groups, often of a large size, in related industries; consequently, it is not possible to hypothesize an increase in returns in just one company. If in the partial equilibrium system of competitive prices, it is not possible to consider decreasing or increasing costs without contradicting the nature of the system, it follows, from this point of view, that production costs of goods produced in competition must be regarded as constant in respect of small variations in the quantity produced" and that the long-run supply curve of an industry is horizontal. As a consequence, the price and the quantity of a good do not derive from the simultaneous action of the supply and demand curves: the price is determined by production costs, while the quantity produced is determined by the demand. The neoclassical symmetry between demand and supply is broken. The old theory that, in competition, "makes the value of commodities dependent on the cost of production alone appears to hold its ground as the best available" (1926b:540-1). Finally, Sraffa remarks that "everyday experience shows that the majority of which produce manufactured consumers' goods operate in conditions of individual diminishing costs. If the limit to the firm's expansion does not arise from increasing costs, then it may arise from the difficulty in expanding the market share without changing any of these three aspects: improving the quality of the output, reducing its price, or increasing marketing expenses. These considerations were developed, in the 1930s, by the theory of
imperfect competition In economics, imperfect competition refers to a situation where the characteristics of an economic market do not fulfil all the necessary conditions of a perfectly competitive market. Imperfect competition causes market inefficiencies, resulting in ...
.


Cambridge years

In 1927, Sraffa's yet undiscussed theory of value, but also his friendship with
Antonio Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...
—a risky and compromising endeavour in the context of the Italian fascist regime—brought
John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes ( ; 5 June 1883 – 21 April 1946), was an English economist and philosopher whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of macroeconomics and the economic policies of governments. Originall ...
to invite Sraffa to the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
, where the Italian economist was initially assigned a lectureship. Sraffa arrived in July of
1927 Events January * January 1 – The British Broadcasting ''Company'' becomes the BBC, British Broadcasting ''Corporation'', when its Royal Charter of incorporation takes effect. John Reith, 1st Baron Reith, John Reith becomes the first ...
and remained there for life. In the shelter of the English city, he held courses about advanced value theory in his first three years. Then, again with the help of Keynes, he held a librarian position and could devote himself to study, intertwining relationships with a series of intellectuals destined to leave remarkable and lasting tracks. Together with
Frank P. Ramsey Frank Plumpton Ramsey (; 22 February 1903 – 19 January 1930) was a British people, British philosopher, mathematician, and economist who made major contributions to all three fields before his death at the age of 26. He was a close friend of ...
and
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
, Sraffa joined the so-called cafeteria group, an informal club that discussed Keynes's theory of probability and
Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek (8 May 1899 – 23 March 1992) was an Austrian-born British academic and philosopher. He is known for his contributions to political economy, political philosophy and intellectual history. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobe ...
's theory of business cycles (see Sraffa–Hayek debate). The economists that should at least be remembered are Michał Kalecki (1899–1970), Maurice Dobb (1900–1976), Joan Robinson (1903–1983) and
Nicholas Kaldor Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Hungarian-born British economist. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare spending, welfare comparisons ...
(1908–1986). Among the philosophers, Frank Plumpton Ramsey (1903–1930) was helpful during the initial elaboration of the equations, datable in 1928, of the book ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'', which was published in 1960. In the early thirties there was a controversy between Sraffa and Friedrich von Hayek, who published a criticism of Keynes's conclusions contained in '' A Treatise on Money'' (1930). After a first reply, Keynes asked Sraffa about writing a more detailed answer to Hayek's theses. Sraffa thoroughly analyzed the inconsistencies in the logic of Hayek's theory on the effect of forced capital savings caused by inflation and above all on the definition of natural interest rate. The debate continued with a reply by Hayek and a rejoinder by Sraffa. In 1939, Sraffa was elected to a fellowship at Trinity College. Luigi Pasinetti identifies five stages of his work in Cambridge. # 1928–1931: research on the history of economic theories, aimed at recovering the "reasonable" economics of the classics. Sraffa intends to "go straight to the unknown, from Marshall to Marx, from disutility to material cost ". # 1931–1940: edition of
David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...
's works; almost ready for printing, they don't get published, both because the "Introduction" (written by Sraffa later) is missing, and because of the discovery of new documents, including all Ricardo's letters to James Mill. # 1941–1945: criticism of neoclassical economics, in particular of the theory of production and distribution of the theory of value (of prices), of the theory of
marginal utility Marginal utility, in mainstream economics, describes the change in ''utility'' (pleasure or satisfaction resulting from the consumption) of one unit of a good or service. Marginal utility can be positive, negative, or zero. Negative marginal utilit ...
and of the theory of interest as a reward for abstinence; processing of his equations with surplus. # 1946–1955: publication of the first ten volumes of Ricardo's works (the eleventh, containing the General Index, will be published in 1973). John Eatwell wrote of Sraffa's work on
David Ricardo David Ricardo (18 April 1772 – 11 September 1823) was a British political economist, politician, and member of Parliament. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Ada ...
:
raffa'sreconstruction of Ricardo's surplus theory, presented in but a few pages of the introduction to his edition of Ricardo's ''Principles'', penetrated a hundred years of misunderstanding and distortion to create a vivid rationale for the structure and content of the surplus theory, for the analytical role of the labour theory of value, and hence for the foundations of Marx's critical analysis of capitalist production.
#1955–1960: preparation of Production of Goods by Means of Goods as mere "premise to a critique of political economy". The original project proved however too vast: of the historical part remains only an appendix of a few pages entitled "Note on the sources". In the Preface, Sraffa expresses his hope that the real criticism will be attempted "later, or by the author or someone younger and better equipped for the company".


''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities''

The critique of neo-classical price theory based on the relations between cost and quantity produced leads Sraffa to abandon the analysis of partial equilibrium. Since the late 1920s, he began to work on a price theory that takes up the classical concepts of reproducibility, surplus, circularity of production, and freedom of entry.Morroni (1998a, p. 212) In his book, ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities,'' published only in 1960, Sraffa focuses on the analysis of relative prices and income distribution, assuming "no changes in output and ... no changes in the proportions in which different means of production are used ..., so that no question arises as to the variation or constancy of returns". As in classics, in Sraffa's 1960 book, relative prices are determined by the conditions of production and not on the basis of the functional connection between returns and quantity produced. Sraffa's ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'' is proposed to perfect classical economics' theory of value as originally developed by Ricardo and others. He aimed to demonstrate flaws in the mainstream neoclassical theory of value and develop an alternative analysis. In this important work, Sraffa analyzes a linear production model in which it is possible to determine the relative price structure and one of the two distributive variables (rate of profit or wage), exogenously given the other and the technology. The value of the capital employed can be known only together with the prices of the goods from which it is made. In essence, Sraffa shows that: # It is not possible to identify a law that simultaneously determines the wage and the rate of profit because: i) the rate of profit can only be determined by setting the wage (or vice versa); ii) it is impossible to measure capital without also determining prices (including the profit), so it is not possible to calculate the profit based on the value of capital (as its remuneration). # It cannot be assumed that, as wages increase, labour is replaced by capital, as the value of the capital depends on the duration of the initial investment; considering capitals of different duration, it may well happen that we prefer to replace capital with labour even if wages increase (so-called "return of techniques"); consequently, unemployment cannot be attributed to the increase in wages. Sraffa's technique of aggregating capital as "dated inputs of labour" led to a debate known as the Cambridge capital controversy. Sraffa's analytical apparatus was used by some followers for the solution to the Marxian problem of transforming values into prices of production and for the criticism of the Marxian theory of value. Moreover, as highlighted by Pasinetti, Sraffa's analysis overcomes the limits of the input-output system of Wassily Leontief, in particular with regard to the effects of technical change. Pasinetti's approach, based on Sraffa's theory, has recently been developed by Kurz and Salvadori. Economists disagree on whether Sraffa's work refutes
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption, and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a go ...
. Many post-Keynesian economists use Sraffa's critique as justification for abandoning neoclassical analysis and exploring other models of economic behaviour. Others see his work as compatible with neoclassical economics as developed in modern general equilibrium models, or as unable to determine a long-period position, just like the Walrasian approach. Others still argue that the importance of Sraffa's economics is that it provides a new framing for how we understand capitalist economies that do not fall back on the arguably unrealistic assumptions of neoclassical economics. Nonetheless, Sraffa's work, particularly his interpretation of Ricardo and his ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'' (1960), is seen as the starting point of the neo-Ricardian school in the 1960s.


Personal connections

Sraffa was instrumental in securing Gramsci's prison notebooks from the Fascist authorities after the latter's death in 1937. In 1924, Gramsci published a letter from Sraffa "Problems of Today and of Tomorrow", Gramsci published 1924 a letter from Sraffa (without signing, signed S.). In the letter, Sraffa emphasizes the function of
bourgeois The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and Aristocracy (class), aristocracy. They are tradition ...
opposition in the struggle against
fascism Fascism ( ) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement. It is characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hie ...
and the importance of democratic institutions for the social and political development of the proletariat. Seeing the Italian Communist Party as weak, Sraffa recommended collaboration with the bourgeois opposition to fascism. In his answer, Gramsci rejected this suggestion, but he followed Sraffa's advice several years later.
Norman Malcolm Norman Adrian Malcolm (; 11 June 1911 – 4 August 1990) was an American philosophy, philosopher. Malcolm was primarily active in the fields of epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of psychology. Biography Malcolm was born in Selden ...
famously credits Sraffa with providing
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
with the conceptual break that founded the ''
Philosophical Investigations ''Philosophical Investigations'' () is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953. ''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls, in the preface, ''Bemer ...
'', by means of a rude gesture on Sraffa's part:
Wittgenstein was insisting that a proposition and what it describes must have the same 'logical form', the same 'logical multiplicity'. Sraffa made a gesture, familiar to Neapolitans as meaning something like disgust or contempt, of brushing the underneath of his chin with an outward sweep of the fingertips of one hand. And he asked: 'What is the logical form of that?'
In the introduction to ''Philosophical Investigations'', Wittgenstein mentions discussions with Sraffa over many years and says: "I am indebted to ''this'' stimulus for the most consequential ideas in this book". However, Sraffa broke off his weekly conversations with Wittgenstein in 1946 despite the latter's protests; and when the philosopher said he would talk about anything Sraffa wanted, "'Yes', Sraffa replied, 'but in ''your'' way'". Sraffa and Wittgenstein influenced each other deeply. While Wittgenstein made his famous turn from the ''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and Citation, cited as TLP) is the only book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that was published during his lifetime. The project had a broad goal ...
'' to the ''Philosophical Investigations'' wherein he jettisoned the previous idea that the world comprised an atomistic set of propositional facts for the notion that meaning derives from its use within a holistic self-enclosed system. Analogously, Sraffa was rebutting the neoclassical paradigm which was similarly atomistic and individualistic. While there are disputes about how to interpret Sraffa none dispute Sraffa's influence. After the publication of ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities'', Sraffa's thought became the subject of a great debate. Sraffa was described as a shy and very reserved man who was devoted to study and books. His library contained more than 8,000 volumes, many of which are now in the Trinity College Library. A popular anecdote claims that Sraffa made successful long-term investments in Japanese government bonds that he bought the day after the nuclear bombing on
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...
and
Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...
. Another version of this is that Sraffa bought the bonds during the war when they were trading at distressed prices as he was convinced that Japan would honour its obligations (
Nicholas Kaldor Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Hungarian-born British economist. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare spending, welfare comparisons ...
, pp. 66–67). Records of Sraffa's investments in his Trinity College papers show that he had in fact begun his purchasing in 1946,S. Lonergan
"Off the Run: Piero Sraffa and Imperial Japanese Government Bonds"
/ref> during post-war debates over whether Japan would repay its external pre-war debts in order to return to normality; his modelled returns were large and Lonergan calculates that Sraffa likely realized an estimated annual return of 16% per annum from 1946-1983. In 1961, before the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel had been created, he was awarded the Söderströmska Gold Medal by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. In 1972, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Sorbonne and in 1976 received another one from
Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...
's Complutense university. Sraffa was involved in Cambridge capital controversy, sometimes called "the capital controversy".Brems (1975) pp. 369-384 It was a debate between prominent economists such as Joan Robinson and Piero Sraffa at the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
in England and economists such as
Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "h ...
and
Robert Solow Robert Merton Solow, GCIH (; August 23, 1924 – December 21, 2023) was an American economist who received the 1987 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, and whose work on the theory of economic growth culminated in the exogenous growth ...
at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. In 1966,
Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he "h ...
organized a symposium in the QJE, in which it was accepted by all parties, including Samuelson himself, that David Levhari had made a mistake and that Sraffa’s proposition is, of course, robust. The proposition in question refuted the Clarkian-type neoclassical explanation of the rate of interest on capital on the basis of the “marginal productivity of capital,” which requires measurement of the “intensity” of capital independently of the rate of interest. Sraffa’s “re-switching” proposition showed that, in general, there is no logical way by which the “intensity of capital” can be measured independently of the rate of interest — and hence the widely held neoclassical explanation of the distribution of income was logically untenable. This victory was well-known as the pinnacle of Sraffa’s book.


Principal works

* Sraffa, Piero, "Monetary inflation in Italy during and after the war", ''Cambridge Journal of Economics'', Vol. 17, No. 1 (March 1993), pp. 7–26; Engl. translation by W.J. Harcourt and C. Sardoni of ''"L'inflazione monetaria in Italia durante e dopo la Guerra,'' Milan, Premiata Scuola Tip. Salesiana, 1920; reprint in ''Economia Politica'', XI, n.2, August 1994, pp. 163-196. *Sraffa, Piero, "''The Bank Crisis in Italy"'', ''The Economic Journal'', 1922, 36 (126) (June), pp. 178-197. *Sraffa, Piero, "The current situation of Italian banks", Manchester Guardian Commercial, 1922, 7 December. *Sraffa, Piero, "Sulle relazioni tra costo e quantità prodotta", ''Annali di economia'', II, 1925, pp. 277-328; English translation by A. Roncaglia and J. Eatwel, "On the relations between cost and quantity produced", in L.L. Pasinetti (ed.), ''Italian Economic Papers'', vol. III, Il Mulino – Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 323-363. *Sraffa, Piero, 1926, "The Laws of Returns under Competitive Conditions", ''Economic Journal'', 36(144), pp. 535–550. *DH Robertson, Piero Sraffa and GF Shove, "Increasing Returns and the Representative Firm ", ''The Economic Journal'', Vol. 40, No. 157 (March, 1930), pp. 79-116. *Piero Sraffa and L. Einaudi, "An Alleged Correction of Ricardo", ''The Quarterly Journal of Economics'', Vol. 44, No. 3 (May, 1930), pp. 539-545 *Sraffa, Piero, "Dr. Hayek on Money and Capital", ''The Economic Journal'', 1932, 42: 42–53. *Sraffa, Piero, "A Rejoinder", ''The Economic Journal'', 1932, 42 (June): 249–51. *Sraffa, Piero, "Malthus on Public Works", ''The Economic Journal'', 1955, 259 (Sept.): 543-544. *Sraffa, Piero, "Introduction to David Ricardo", ''Works and Correspondence'', in P. Sraffa and M. H. Dobb, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1951–1955 (vols. IX) and 1973 (vol. XI, indexes), vol. I: pp. XIII-LXII. * Sraffa, Piero, 1960, ''Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities: Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory''. Cambridge University Press
Preview.
* Sraffa, Piero and M.H. Dobb, editors (1951–1973). ''The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo''. Cambridge University Press, 11 vols
Online
at the Online Library of Liberty.


References


Further reading

* D'Orlando, Fabio (2005). "Will the Classical-type Approach Survive Sraffian Theory?", in ''Journal of Post Keynesian Economics'', 27(4), pp. 633–654 * Eatwell, John (1984). "Piero Sraffa: Seminal Economic Theorist." ''Science and Society'', 48(2), pp. 211–216.
JSTOR JSTOR ( ; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources founded in 1994. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary source ...
40402578. Reprinted in ''Piero Sraffa: Critical Assessments'', J. Wood J. C. Wood, 1995, v. 1, pp. 74–79. * Eatwell, John and Panico, C. (1987 008. "Sraffa, Piero", ''The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 3, pp. 445–452. * Enciclopedia Treccani, "Sraffa, Piero in "Il Contributo italiano alla storia del Pensiero: Economia"". www.treccani.it. * Harcourt, Geoffrey C., "Sraffa, Piero (1898–1983)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. * Hayek, F. A. (1931a), "Reflection on the pure theory of money of Mr. JM Keynes," ''Economic'' 11, S. 270–95 (1931). * Hayek, F. A. (1931b) Prices and Production, (London: Routledge, 1931). * Hicks, John (1939), The Foundations of Welfare Economics, pp. 696–712 in ''Economic Journal'', IL, December 1939 * Kurz, Heinz D. (2000) "Critical Essays on Piero Sraffa's Legacy in Economics" (2000) * Kurz Heinz D. and Salvadori Neri (1907), ''Theory of production.'' ''A long-period analysis'', Cambridge University Press. * Monk, R. (1991), Ludwig Wittgenstein * Morroni, Mario (1998a), ''Decreasing returns'', in Kurz H. D. and Salvadori N. (eds), ''The Elgar Companion to Classical Economics. A–K,'' vol. I, Elgar, Cheltenham. * Morroni, Mario (1999b), ''Increasing returns'', in Kurz H. D. and Salvadori N. (eds), ''The Elgar Companion to Classical Economics. A–K,'' vol. I, Elgar, Cheltenham. * Norman, Malcolm, "Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir", pp. 58–59. * ''L'Ordine Nuovo'' (PDF). www.centrogramsci.it. Retrieved 2019-06-11. * Panico, Carlo, Salvadori, Neri (1994), "Sraffa, Marshall and the problem of returns", ''European Journal of the History of Economic Thought'', vol. 1, n. 2, pp. 323–343 * Pasinetti, Luigi L. (1977), ''Lectures on the theory of production'', MacMillan, London. * Pasinetti, Luigi L. (1998), "Piero Sraffa: An Italian economist at Cambridge", in L. L. Pasinetti (ed.), ''Italian Economic Papers'', vol. III, Il Mulino – Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 365–382. * Potier, Jean-Pierre (1991). ''Piero Sraffa, Unorthodox Economist (1898–1983): A Biographical Essay''. . * Pilkington, Philip (2014) "The Sraffian Versus the Marginalist Worldview: A Strong Case for Academic Pluralism", Fixing the Economists, April 29 http://fixingtheeconomists.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/the-sraffian-versus-the-marginalist-worldview-a-strong-case-for-academic-pluralism/ * Samuelson, Paul A. ( 9872008). "Sraffian economics." '' The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics'' 2nd Edition. Abstract. *
Steve Keen Steve Keen (born 28 March 1953) is an Australian economist and author. He considers himself a post-Keynesian, criticising neoclassical economics as inconsistent, unscientific, and empirically unsupported. Keen was formerly an associate profe ...
, ''Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences'' (2001, Pluto Press Australia) . * Heinz D. Kurz, Ed. "Critical Essays on Piero Sraffa's Contribution to Economics" (2000, Cambridge University Press) . * Ranchetti F., "On the Relationship between Sraffa and Keynes", in T. Cozzi e R. Marchionatti (eds.), Piero Sraffa's Political Economy: A Centenary Estimate, Routledge, London, 2001. * Ranchetti F., "Communication and intellectual integrity. The correspondence between Keynes and Sraffa", in M.C. Marcuzzo e A. Rosselli (eds.), Economists in Cambridge, Routledge, London, 2005, pp. 119–148. * Sinha A., "Sraffa's Contributions to the Methodology of Economics." Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics January 2015 vol. 27 no. 1 33–48. * Sinha A., "Sraffa and the Later Wittgenstein." Contributions to Political Economy, 2009 Vol. 28, Issue 1, pp. 47–69. * Vianello, F. 988 "A critique of Professor Goodwin's Critique of Sraffa", in: Ricci, G. and Velupillai, K. (eds.), ''Growth, Cycles and Multisectoral Economics: the Goodwin Tradition'', Berlin, Sringer-Verlag, . * Vianello, F. 989 "Effective Demand and the Rate of Profits: Some Thoughts on
Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
, Kalecki and Sraffa", in: Sebastiani, M. (ed.), ''Kalecki's Relevance Today'', London, Macmillan, . * Anderaos de Araujo Fabio., "Sraffa and the Labour Theory of Value - a note", Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Oct-Dec 2019, vol 39, p. 614-637. *Santucci, A. A., 2010. ''Antonio Gramsci''. NYU Press. Chapter "The Prison Notebooks" (pp. 135–161) documents Sraffa's relationship with
Antonio Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , ; ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosophy, Marxist philosopher, Linguistics, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, Political philosophy, political the ...
, while the latter was imprisoned under the Fascist Regime.


External links


Piero Sraffa Archives homepage
at Trinity College, Cambridge. Contains an online catalogue of Sraffa's personal and professional papers. * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sraffa, Piero 1898 births 1983 deaths Writers from Turin Post-Keynesian economists Italian agnostics Italian economists 20th-century Italian Jews Italian pacifists Italian socialists Jewish agnostics Alumni of the London School of Economics Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Academic staff of the University of Perugia Socialist economists Italian expatriates in England Fellows of the British Academy