 Carl Menger’s Contribution to Capital TheoryTUC Working Papers in Economics from Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal) Abstract: The common interpretation of Carl Menger’s take on capital theory rests upon a few sentences in his Principles of Economics. His later monograph on the topic, Zur Theorie des Kapitals (A contribution to the theory of capital), is more or less ignored, although it must be seen as a recantation of his earlier views. As it becomes clear in this work, Menger would have opposed all attempts to define capital as a heterogeneous structure of higher-order goods – a definition that is associated with his name today. In his opinion capital is a homogeneous concept stemming from accounting practices. The debate about Menger’s view on capital does not only concern terminological points, but involves the subject matter of capital theory. A theory of capital based on Menger’s later view would concentrate on the way the market economy is organized and not on technical characteristics of a multi-stage production process. Keywords: Carl Menger; Capital Theory; History of Economic Thought (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:tuc:tucewp:0011 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in TUC Working Papers in Economics from Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal) Julius-Albert-Str. 2, 38678 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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