Some Issues in the Sraffian View of Competition: Starting from Clifton

Graham White

Review of Political Economy, 2019, vol. 31, issue 1, 75-94

Abstract: The article seeks to advance discussion about the nature of competition and of the ‘firm’ consistent with a classical-Sraffian perspective on relative prices and distribution. Discussion focuses primarily on the work of James Clifton published from the late 1970's. Clifton's insights have a direct bearing on issues at the heart of broader Sraffian research: how relative prices are anchored by the mobility of capital; whether the rate of profit should be interpreted as the exogenous distributive variable in the Sraffian price system; and, the forces which govern the ‘normal’ rate of profit, including the causal significance of the rate of growth. While Clifton's approach lends support to the interpretation of the rate of profit as a target rate of return, the article takes issue with Semmler's explanation as being endogenous to the price system. An alternative exogenous explanation of the target rate by reference to the rate of growth from Eichner is also considered, but rejected, despite the similarities between the insights of Clifton and Eichner into corporate pricing. Some useful implications from Clifton's analysis—as to the modeling of classical competition and gravitation—are also drawn out.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09538259.2018.1530842 (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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:31:y:2019:i:1:p:75-94

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/CRPE20

DOI: 10.1080/09538259.2018.1530842

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Political Economy is currently edited by Steve Pressman and Louis-Philippe Rochon

More articles in Review of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().