Piero Sraffa: The Man and the Scholar

Previously published as special issues of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought and The Review of Political Economy, this volume contains the papers devoted to the life and work of Piero Sraffa.

Sraffa was a leading intellectual of the twentieth century. He was brought to Cambridge by John Maynard Keynes and had an important impact on the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. He received the golden medal Söderström of the Swedish Academy of Sciences for his edition of David Ricardo’s Works and Correspondence and he is the author of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities, one of the most often cited book in economics. Using hitherto unpublished material from Sraffa’s literary heritage kept at Trinity College, Cambridge, the papers throw new light on the intellectual development of the young Sraffa and correct several of the received views on him and his contribution. Themes covered concern his:

objectivism
rediscovery and reformulation of the classical theory of value and distribution
criticism of Alfred Marshall’s analysis
relationship with his Cambridge colleagues and friends
biography around the time when he left Italy for the UK
friendship with Wittgenstein and his impact on the latter’s thinking.

Author Biography

Professor Kurz is Professor of Economics at the University of Graz, Austria.

Luigi Pasinetti is Professor Emeritus at the Catholic University of Milan, Italy.

Neri Salvadori is Professor of Economics at the University of Pisa, Italy.