Previous message: Michael Perelman: "[OPE-L:4030] Re: More Depreciation Questions"
Sorry if the point was a bit cryptic. The best thing is to refer you to a
couple of papers. B. Schefold shows that the classical criterion of
technical choice, ie, only new technologies which increase the overall
profit rate are chosen, for systems with fixed capital where fixed capital
is used for its most profitable lifetime. The article is 'Multiple Product
Techniques with Properties of Single Product Systems', *Zeitschrift für
Nationalökonomie*, 38, 1978.
I discuss extensions of the Okishio theorm to fixed capital systems
using a Brody type-model in 'An Obituary or New Life for the Tendency of
the Rate of Profit to Fall', RRPE, Vol XV, 1, 1983, pp 141-144 and in
footnotes notes on p. 146., where I show that the extensions will not
generally work if fixed capital is scrapped earlier or later than is
maximally profitable, which gives rise to fixed capital having negative
values at some ages.
Negative values (and negative surplus value with positive profits) which
Andrew claimed could only be reconciled with the 'successivist method' seem
to crop up with simultaneism also, especially if we consider joint products
or multiple technologies - in fact, Steedman made this the basis of a
criticism of value theory as I recall!
Hope this begins to make the poitn clearer.
cheers,
Ian