Marshall's Theory of Knowledge on Production Methods:Standardization and External Economies
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概要
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In this paper, we try to reinterpret Marshall's External Economies with the key con cept of "the knowledge on production methods." In Section 2, through reexamining the criticism directed against Marshall's treatment of increasing returns, we outline the reason why we seek the possibility of "external economies at an industry level." The consequence of the Cambridge Cost Controversy was quite legitimate as far as the adoption of the equilibrium method was premised. Marshall's representative firm cannot be supported when assessed strictly since it is a static concept that contains several dynamic forces in it. Surely, we need to adopt a dynamic method for dynamic phenomena, which Allen Young once maintained forcibly. But we differ from Young in that we consider a partial method to be useful in spite of the fact that he contended the analysis of increasing returns to be conducted in inter-industrial context.In Section 3, the function of the organization of a firm is discussed from the standpoint of "the knowledge on production methods, " which is the type of applicable knowledge that cannot be discovered and learned from basic principles nor restored as explicit knowledge. The characteristic of the knowledge on production methods is that both improving and learning take place only gradually through a trial-and-error process. So, time and stable environments are necessary for this type of knowledge to be utilized effectively. We show that internal economies can be interpreted as the economies of specialization and integration of production knowledge at a firm level.In Section 4, we proceed to the reinterpretation of Marshall's external economies. What various firms in an industry face is the situation where the knowledge on the production methods is not in a complete form and is much diversified among them. Thus, an industry can be regarded as a place of competition over alternative production methods. Firms in an industry strive to improve their own knowledge while paying attention to the movements of other firms. Firms in the same industry can be viewed to comprise a kind of knowledge community where the knowledge on the production methods spreads and is shared. Although firms in the same industry are in a competitive relation, but are on the same vessel in another viewpoint. For, any progress in production methods carried out by one firm is a threat to others in the same industry in the short run, but contributes to the industry as a whole in the long run. The shared knowledge can contribute to unintended cooperation among firms that adopts the same production knowledge just as a commonly shared language does. Thus, standardization helps to economize coordination costs between firms in the same industry. The main contention of this paper is that Marshall's external economies can be reinterpreted as the economies available through the standardization of knowledge on production methods that takes place mainly at the industry level. Being reinterpreted in this way, Marshall's concept of external economies has a sufficient economic basis.
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