Robert Torrens and the Classical Theory of Growth

Taro Hisamatsu
Additional contact information
Taro Hisamatsu: Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University

No 1633, Discussion Papers from Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University

Abstract: This paper reconstructs Torrens fs theory of economic growth. Actual wage is determined by the capital-population ratio between the maximum and the minimum wage. In the process of growth, the maximum wage keeps being lowered by the decreasing marginal productivity in agriculture, while the minimum wage remains constant. Based on these notions of wages, Torrens fs economic dynamics are described as follows. In the early stage of growth, capital increases faster than population so that the actual wage rises above the minimum. Thereafter, the economy grows with a tendency for the population to increase faster than the capital while limiting the actual wage below the decreasing maximum until it enters a stationary state and the actual wage and profit rate are reduced to their minimum. This theory has been attributed to Ricardo by some scholars, but Torrens proposed a more ingenious theory than Ricardo fs.

Pages: 13 pages
Date: 2016-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-hpe
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.kobe-u.ac.jp/RePEc/koe/wpaper/2016/1633.pdf
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to www.econ.kobe-u.ac.jp:443 (Bad file descriptor) (http://www.econ.kobe-u.ac.jp/RePEc/koe/wpaper/2016/1633.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.econ.kobe-u.ac.jp/RePEc/koe/wpaper/2016/1633.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:koe:wpaper:1633

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kimiaki Shirahama ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).