SEMAINE D'ÉTUDE SUR LE ROLE DE L ANALYSE ECONOMETRIQUE ETC.
50%
This is an old dilemma in economic analysis. When the
classical economists (RICARDO in particular) faced it, they
thought they could take the wage rate as given from outside
the sphere of economics. Later on, the marginalist economists
chose the other alternative. As is well known, they introduced
a series of new hypotheses, which amounted to treating capital
goods as if they were natural resources, and built up a whole
theory behind the technical coefficients — the theory of mar-
ginal productivity.
In the present work, I am in a sense going back to the
Classics’ approach, but with a reversal of their hypothesis. At
this stage, I shall take as given the rate of profit (x). It must
be made clear, however, that this step does not have, here, the
same meaning that taking a given wage rate had for the Clas-
sics. The rate of profit is not an exogenous magnitude in the
present theoretical scheme (as technology and consumers’ pre-
ferences are). What this taking the rate of profit as given here
means is a simple assertion that the rate of profit is not de-
termined by the elements of the model so far considered. Of
course, the rate of profit is determined bv elements which come
within the scope of economic investigation and which must
be examined. We shall come back to this problem later on
in chapter V. For the time being, the only anticipation of
that discussion needed here is that the rate of profit is bound
‘0 remain roughly constant, or rather, to show a roughly cons-
ant trend through time.
This result is relevant here because it allows us to keep
the rate of profit among the constants of our analysis. Thereby
we are in a position to express the new vector appearing in
I1.12) in terms of prices, and to incorporate its constant ele-
ments into the coefficient matrix. The rate of profit itself need
not necessarily be exactly the same in all sectors. There may
be particular elements of risk and uncertainty in each sector,
10] Pasinetli - pag. 25
