Research Catalog

Title

The Return to increasing returns / edited by James M. Buchanan and Yong J. Yoon.

Publication

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [1994], ©1994.

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Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

• Buchanan, James M.
• Yoon, Yong J.

Description

ix, 382 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

• The wealth of a nation depends on the division of labor, and the division of labor depends on the extent of the market. Adam Smith advanced this proposition in 1776, but neoclassical economists, in particular, have had difficulty incorporating it into conventional models. Increasing returns, as related to the size of the market nexus, have never found a secure place in economic theory, despite early efforts by Adam Smith, Alfred Marshall, and Allyn Young.
• The neoclassical theory of distribution, developed in the last decades of the nineteenth century, relies on the postulate that in equilibrium there exist constant returns to scale, not only in particular firms and industries, but in the economy as a whole. As general equilibrium theory developed, emphasis was shifted to the properties of equilibrium, to the proofs of its existence, and to the attributes of welfare.
• The possibility of increasing returns represented an analytical "monkey wrench" thrown in the whole neoclassical structure. Thus, the neglect of increasing returns may have been methodologically understandable - if scientifically scandalous. Only in recent years has the increasing returns postulate returned to the mainstream through analyses of endogenous growth, international trade, unemployment, and the economics of ethics

Subject

• Economies of scale
• Economic development
• Industrial productivity

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Contents

• 1. The Return to Increasing Returns: An Introductory Summary / James M. Buchanan -- 2. From The Wealth of Nations / Adam Smith -- 3. Correlation of the Tendencies to Increasing and to Diminishing Returns / Alfred Marshall -- 4. Increasing Returns and Economic Progress / Allyn Young -- 5. The Division of Labor Is Limited by the Extent of the Market / George J. Stigler -- 6. Economics and Biology: Specialization and Speciation / Hendrik S. Houthakker -- 7. The Division of Labor in the Economy, the Polity, and Society / Kenneth J. Arrow -- 8. The Irrelevance of Equilibrium Economics / Nicholas Kaldor -- 9. Interregional Trade and Cumulative Causation / Nicholas Kaldor -- 10. External Economies of Scale and Competitive Equilibrium / John S. Chipman -- 11. Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity / Avinash K. Dixit and Joseph E. Stiglitz -- 12. The Assumption of Constant Returns to Scale / John R. Hicks.
• 13. National and International Returns to Scale in the Modern Theory of International Trade / Wilfred J. Ethier -- 14. Increasing Returns, Monopolistic Competition, and International Trade / Paul R. Krugman -- 15. Comparative Advantage and Long-Run Growth / Gene M. Grossman and Elhanan Helpman -- 16. Increasing Returns and the Foundations of Unemployment Theory / Martin L. Weitzman -- 17. Growth Based on Increasing Returns Due to Specialization / Paul M. Romer -- 18. Endogenous Technological Change / Paul M. Romer -- 19. Specialization and a New Approach to Economic Organization and Growth / Jeffrey I. Borland and Xiaokai Yang -- 20. The Supply of Labor and the Extent of the Market / James M. Buchanan -- 21. Increasing Returns, Parametric Work-Supply Adjustment, and the Work Ethic / James M. Buchanan and Yong J. Yoon -- 22. Conclusion and Summary / Yong J. Yoon.

ISBN

0472104322

LCCN

93039932

OCLC

• 29182228
• ocm29182228

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries