On Aug 26, 1996 12:14:40, 'Duncan K Foley <dkf2@columbia.edu>' wrote:
>On Mon, 26 Aug 1996, John Ernst wrote:
>(in part)
>>
>> 1. If rising real wages cause capitalists to introduce
>> labor-saving and capital-using technologies, will
>> falling real wages give them cause to switch back
>> to the old techniques? Are there examples of this?
>
>I think this is an extremely important question. It is at the heart of the
>debate over the neoclassical production function vs a Cambridge
>fixed-coefficients approach with technical change, since the neoclassicals
>presumably believe that falling real wages would take one back along the
>isoquant, whereas the Cambridge view would disagree.
>
>Duncan
>
Duncan is right the question is important. It has been awhile since the
"Cambridge controversy" surfaced. Are there any empirical studies of the
question? Does not the traditional Marxist approach to the notion of
technical change correspond to that of neoclassicals?