Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (1)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Bellino, E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Related Collections
Right arrow B12 - Classical
Right arrow B31 - Individuals
Right arrow D33 - Factor Income Distribution
Right arrow D46 - Value Theory
Right arrow E11 - Marxian; Sraffian; Institutional; Evolutionary
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Cambridge Journal of Economics 28:121-132 (2004)
Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 28, No. 1, © Cambridge Political Economy Society 2004; all rights reserved

On Sraffa's Standard commodity

Enrico Bellino*

Address for correspondence: Enrico Bellino, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123 Milan, Italy; email: enrico.bellino{at}unicatt.it

JEL classifications: B12, D33, D46, E11

The necessity of expressing the relative price of a commodity in terms of another commodity makes it impossible to distinguish that part of any change that can be ascribed to the characteristics of the commodity itself from the part of that change that is to be ascribed to the characteristics of the commodity of reference, i.e., the numéraire. Ricardo (1817) was the first to point out this problem and the need to find an ‘invariable measure of value’, but he was not able to solve the problem. In 1960, Sraffa suggested using a bundle of commodities, that he called ‘Standard commodity’, to accomplish this function, claiming that it was a standard of value invariant with respect to changes in the distribution of income. But in Sraffa's book there is no explicit proof of this claim. This gave rise to many misunderstandings about the Standard commodity and its role as invariable measure of value. This paper proposes a proper definition of an ‘invariable measure of value’, and then proves that the Sraffa ‘Standard commodity’ does fulfil the requirements of this definition.

Key Words: Standard commodity • Invariable measure of value • Price theory • Sraffa price system • Value theory • Distribution theory

Manuscript received July 23, 2001; final version received November 16, 2001.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Cambridge J EconHome page
S. Baldone
On Sraffa's Standard commodity: is its price invariant with respect to changes in income distribution?
Camb. J. Econ., March 1, 2006; 30(2): 313 - 319.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.