Economics 219 
Professor Josef Steindl 
197U-1975 
. Spring Quarter 
Reading List 
Income Distribution 
I. Theories of profits aa surplus, based on the concept of a subsistence 
wage: Smith, Ricardo, Marx; The Ricardian Renaissance (Neo-Ricardian).. 
II. Marginal Productivity Theory 
A. The American tradition: J. B. Clark, Paul Douglas 
A symmetric treatment of the factors of production. 
The Cobb-Douglas Function; empirical evidence. 
V III. 
B. The attempts at defining and measuring capital as a physical 
unit. 
(Bohm-Bawerk, Wicksell; T he Modern Capital Controversy: 
"The Switching Theorum." 
Distribution theory based on "monopoly" (imperfection of markets): 
M. Kalecki 
4 
The "mark-up" on prime cost is determined by the degree of market power 
(monopoly). Distribution theory is based on this explanation of cost- 
price relations. 
IV. The role of imperfection of capital markets and of the scarcity of 
entrepreneurial risk capital; profit adapts itself to the exigencies 
of capital accumulation (investment) both in short and long run: 
Joan Robinson; J. Steindl; Nicholas Kaldor, L. L. Pasinetti. 
V. Inflation as an underground fight about income distribution. 
VI. Personal distribution of income and wealth and its relations to the 
functional distribution; the stochastic approach of Champernowne; 
explanation of the Pareto distribution of wealth and income as a 
steady state of a stochastic process. 
The following reading list, without being in any way comprehensive, aims 
at giving the interested student sufficient choice to pursue his special 
interests. The following books are, however, generally recommended as 
introduction to the subject: Bronfenbrenner, Dobb, and Pasinetti (see 
the following page).