Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-p9bg8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T08:17:19.577Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“The Labor-Less Labor Supply Model” in the Era Before Philip Wicksteed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

David A. Spencer
David A. Spencer
Affiliation:
Leeds University, Business School, Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In a recent article in this journal, Laurent Derobert (2001) examined the origins of the canonical model of labor supply. According to this model, workers will exchange “leisure” for work at a rate determined by the hourly wage. In this case, labor supply will be a simple function of the utility of leisure and the utility of income. Paradoxically, this permits the understanding of labor supply to proceed without consideration of labor itself. Derobert identifies Philip H. Wicksteed (1910) as the originator of this approach. Apparently he was the first economist to model labor supply in terms of a leisure-income trade-off. Thus it is claimed that Wicksteed bequeathed to the economics profession the paradox of the “labor-less labor supply model.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , December 2003 , pp. 505 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Black, Duncan. 1939. The Incidence of Income Taxes. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1985. Economic Theory in Retrospect, 4th edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von. 1891. The Positive Theory of Capital, translated by Smart, William A.. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Böhm-Bawerk, von Eugen. 1894. “One Word More on the Ultimate Standard of Value.” Economic Journal 4 (16): 719–24.Google Scholar
Chapman, Sydney. 1909. “Hours of Labour.” Economic Journal 19 (75): 355–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, John Bates. 1893. “The Surplus Gains of Labor.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 3 (5): 79–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derobert, Laurent. 2001. “The Genesis of the Canonical Labor Supply Model.” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 23 (2): 197–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edgeworth, F. Y. 1894. “One Word More on the Ultimate Standard of Value: Reply to Böhm-Bawerk.” Economic Journal 4 (16): 724–25.Google Scholar
Green, David I. 1894. “Pain-Cost and Opportunity-Cost.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 8 (2): 218–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jevons, William Stanley. 1871. The Theory of Political Economy, with an introduction by R. Collinson-Black. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970.Google Scholar
Patten, Simon N. 1893. “Cost and Expense.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 4 (05): 35–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rottenberg, Simon. 1952. “Income and Leisure and in an Undeveloped Economy.” Journal of Political Economy 60 (2): 95–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph. 1954. History of Economic Analysis. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Scitovsky, Tibor. 1951. Welfare and Competition. Chicago: Richard D. Irwin.Google Scholar
Spencer, David A. 2003. “Love's Labour's Lost? The Disutility of Work and Work Avoidance in the Economic Analysis of Labour Supply.” Review of Social Economy 61 (2): 235–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spencer, David A. Forthcoming. “From Pain Cost to Opportunity Cost: The Eclipse of Work in Economic Theory.” History of Political Economy.Google Scholar
Veblen, Thorstein. 1925. The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. London: Allen & Unwin, 1899.Google Scholar
White, Michael. 1994. “Bridging the Natural and the Social: Science and Character in Jevons's Political Economy.” Economic Inquiry 32 (3): 429–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wicksteed, Philip H. 1910. The Common Sense of Political Economy. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wieser, von Friedrich. 1891. “The Austrian School and the Theory of Value.” Economic Journal 1 (1): 108–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar