Answers to Riccardo's quiz questions:
A. Schumpeter. I think this is a "fair," i.e., accurate account.
B. Morishima. Unfair. Marx is determining not relative prices but money
prices, and the profit rate is determined *before* and independently of
output prices. Moreover, I think the real point of Ch. 9 of Vol. III was
not to give a unique determinate answer for prices of production (for
there cannot be a unique one unless input prices and the rate of profit
are given), but to illustrate the conservation of value and surplus-value
in exchange.
C. Baumol. Fair as explanation of a mathematical representation of the
process but not, of course, an account of the actual process.
D. Mirowski. Fair, though the substance metaphor is a bit misleading, and
value is not conserved in Marx's theory the way Mirowski contends, in my
view. It is conserved in exchange, created in production, destroyed through
consumption. But I think that when values change, the aggregate value of
capital can change without "going" anywhere, contrary to Mirowski.
E. Steedman. Unfair. C and V are not "derived" from data, they *are*
(some of) the data.
As far as sources go, perhaps
A. History of Economic Analysis?
B. Marx's Economics?
C. Baumol's reply to Samuelson in the _JEL_?
D. More Heat than Light
E. Marx after Sraffa
What don't I win?
When will winners be announced?
Why are you asking?
Here's a quiz of my own: Senior's Last Dollar.
3 men check into a hotel. The clerk, Nassau Senior, looks up the price,
$30. The men sign in. Each hands over a $10 bill, which Senior records.
Later, the manager looks over the books, and finds that Senior has over-
charged the men. The price is only $25. The manager takes 5 $1 bills out
of the cash register, and tells Senior to give them to the men.
Senior realizes that 3 men cannot split $5 evenly, so, on the way to the
room, he puts $2 in his pocket and gives the men $3, telling them the
price is really $27.
The men paid $30, but got back $3, so ended up paying $27. Senior has
$2 in his pocket. But $27 + $2 = $29. Where's Senior's Last Dollar?
(Hint: the answer has nothing to do with deviations of prices from values,
or with moral depreciation.)
Prize: the winner gets to answer more of Riccardo's and Simon's questions.
Andrew Kliman