Organization and Distribution in Marshall's Writings:the Role of 'Free Capital'

概要

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The importance of Organization in Marshall's economics has gradually come to be recognized. This paper carries further this line of thought as to develop an implication for his theory of distribution.Factors of production employed within different organizations (firms or industries) can never be expected to earn the equal rates of reward in Marshall's system. Thus, the notion of 'capital in general' or that of 'labor in general' is without substance except in a special case. No normal rate of profit nor of wage is determined in a market, but is defined only in relation to the representative firm. The role of 'free capital' which had best be interpreted as capital outside an organization is to determine the rate of interest as a market price for using capital and to apply it to existing capital within different organizations to estimate the amount of net interest which must be paid out of whatever profits firms realized.There is no confusion between the rate of interest and the rate of profit as sometimes claimed. The real problem lies in the confusion between the money rate of interest and the real rate of interest arising from the ambiguous character of 'free capital'.
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