Theory of Production : A Long-Period Analysis

Rating:
Summary: Theory of Production
Review: First, let me say that this book is for intermediate students of economics or professors, not for the layman.

The book contains a throughout treatment of Sraffarian-von Neumann type production theory; coupled with a brief intoduction
to various theories of distribution. The perspective of the book
is on the Cambridge-UK side of the so-called Cambridge controversy. Production sets are inherently non-connected (in particular they are not differentiable manifolds), consisting of a list of Leontieff type input-output vectors. What the authors succeed in doing is bringing out the (many) interesting insights this perspective leads to; and since the book contains a very skillfully written historical dimension, it is altogether enjoyable reading.
On the back of the book P. Samuelson writes in a review that he expects to wear down a copy every year or two. I don't know if everybody would read it that much; but the book does cover material which standard text-books miss completely: Joint production (not just as a possibility within general assumptions but its implications), the debate on "capital aggregates" (the Cambridge controversy), and so forth.
I would recommend this book to any economist, who wishes to get a glimse into a world where "aggregate capital" is considered a misfit of imagination. I would in fact recommend this book to any economist, who wishes another perspective on the theory of production. I don't see it as being necessarily in opposition to neo-classical theory, more as supplementary to Arrow-Debreu theory (of which it may be seen as a special case, though the authors argue against this viewpoint). The Cambridge-UK perspective does, however, pose a challenge to macroeconomic modeling with production functions and all of that. And after all, since so many excellent economists chose to side with Sraffa, it would be strange if they did not arrive at some exciting results and insights - wouldn't it ?