Labour Time versus Alternative Value Bases: A Research Note

William Cockshott () and Allin F Cottrell

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1997, vol. 21, issue 4, 545-49

Abstract: This paper provides empirical support for the 'law of value,' understood as the proposition that embodied labor time is conserved in exchanges of commodities. Market prices are well correlated with the sum of direct and indirect labor content. Is it possible to produce equally good correlations by taking the sum of direct and indirect x-content, where x is some input other than labor time? The authors repeat the analysis for electricity, iron and steel, and oil and show that the answer is no. The high correlations in the case of labor time are, therefore, not a statistical artifact. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1997
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