Surely, then you can riddle me this, then, Jim: didn't Harrod either
explicitly or implicitly rely on Hicks's (The Theory of Wages, 1932)
work-around of the difficulty posed by Chapman's equation, also acknowledged
by Lionel Robbins ("The economic effects of variations of hours of labor,"
1929)?Because if he did, then his equation is only true in the sense that it assumes away the cases where it would be false. Since Hicks's work-around involved the assumption that unions would be strong enough to enforce work-time reductions by strike action in the event (not unlikely according to the Chapman theory) that the given hours of work were NOT optimal for output, it would be plausible to imagine that the Hicks assumption may not prevail in the U.S.A. today. If he didn't use Hicks's wriggle, how did he get around the problem of indeterminacy addressed by Hicks and Robbins? I also understand that Hicks later disavowed his 1937 mathematical interpretation of Keynes as too static and unhistorical. Does Hicks's disavowal have any effect on dynamic applicability of Harrod's equation? Or does the fact that it is part of Harrod's trump all questions about whether it is in fact static or dynamic. On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Sandwichman <[email protected]> wrote: > > . I have constructed spreadsheets that use Chapman's theory to > > test the kind of hypotheses that Jim Devine appears capable of deciding > by > > pulling answers out of the air: "if the productivity per hour of > labor-power > > hired rises, in situations of low aggregate demand such as the present > > capitalists will cut the number of hours of labor-power hired unless > there > > is also an increase in demand and thus real production..." > > that's not "out of thin air." What I said was true by definition. > > in response, Tom writes: > > This NOT true because it imposes a > > static short run constraint on a dynamic two-period model. > > that's not true. The equation is true whether it's a static short-run > story or a dynamic one. It's part of Harrod's theory of growth. > > > To put it in > > technical language, you are invoking not only the wages-fund doctrine but > > the Harriet Martineau/John Weston rendition of the wages-fund doctrine. > > this true-by-definition equation has nothing to do with Martineau or > Weston since it says nothing about wages or the wages fund. > -- > Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own > way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Sandwichman
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