Economic essays

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Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

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Title:: Elasticity of supply as a determinant of distribution / Paul H. Douglas

Collection:: Economics Books

88 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK tend to increase in any such ratio and if its supply remained constant, then the produce jointly attributable to labor and capital would decrease. Within this joint product, the relative productivity of these two factors would be the same but their absolute shares would shrink and this would bring the unit return for each down toward the P; and P points which originally prevailed. Secondly, it is of course virtually inconceivable that the supply curves of two factors or even of one would be thus infinitely elastic. The natural forces of resistance to labor and to saving would tend to cause them to turn upward after a time. And when this happened the approach to an equilibrium would be hastened. Irrespective of changes in marginal productivity, the upward movement of the supply curves would at some time inter- cept the new returns. This would be hastened, of course, by the failure of a third factor to expand commensurately and would be complicated, as we shall see, if the upward tilt of the supply curve of either X or Y began earlier or sloped more sharply than that of the other factor. A third illustration which may be chosen is that where both elastic- ities are equal. In Figure 8, both X and Y are given unit positive elasticity and are given a common point of origin. They are both therefore represented by the curve of S in which the quantity A is offered for the return P. A word should be added here concerning the scale on which quantities of two differing factors are drawn, since it may well be asked how it is possible to represent hours of labor and physical units of capital upon the same scale. The author makes no effort to prove, as Cairnes sought to do, that both factors can be reduced to common and commensurate units of disutility, for each F1ag. 8

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