Sraffa's mathematical economics: a constructive interpretation

K. Vela Velupillai

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2008, vol. 15, issue 4, pages 325-342

Abstract: The claim in this paper is that Sraffa employed a rigorous logic of mathematical reasoning in his book, Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (PCC), in such a way that the existence proofs were constructive. This is the kind of mathematics that was prevalent at the beginning of the nineteenth century, which was dominated by the concrete, the constructive and the algorithmic. It is, therefore, completely consistent with the economics of the nineteenth century, which was the fulcrum around which the economics of PCC was conceived.

Keywords: existence proofs; constructive mathematics; algorithmic mathematics; mathematical economics; mathematical methodology; B23; B24; B31; B41; B51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article& ... 40C6AD35DC6213A474B5 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:15:y:2008:i:4:p:325-342

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/subscription.html

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Methodology is edited by Mark Blaug

More articles in Journal of Economic Methodology from Taylor and Francis Journals
Series data maintained by Christopher F. Baum ().