Scazzieri,A THEORY OF PRODUCTION,'93 Clarendon Oxford[economia,teoria,produzione

Roberto Scazzieri,
A THEORY OF PRODUCTION.
Tasks, Processes, and Technical Practices.
Clarendon Press Oxford, 1993,
copertina rigida con sovraccoperta, 22,5x14 cm., pp.308,
testo in lingua inglese,
peso: g.528

cod.2386

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Contents
1. Introduction 1
1.1. Scope of the Volume and Historical Perspectives 1
1.2. Technical Capabilities and Productive Funds: An
Appraisal of Recent Contributions 8
1.3. Tasks, Processes, and the Theory of Production 13
1.4. Plan of the Volume 17
part i. Theoretical Perspectives on
Process and Scale 25
2. The Analytical Representation of Productive
Activity 27
2.1. The Descriptive Patterns of Productive Activity 27
2.2. Analytical Features of Technological
Interrelatedness 28
2.3. Scale and Size 30
3. Scale and Technical Practice: A Rational
Reconstruction 34
3.1. The Problem of Scale in Production Theory 34
3.2. Scale and Division of Labour: From Serra to Mill 36
3.3. Scale and ‘Limits to Production’ 49
3.4. Large-Scale Production, Task Specialization, and
Productive Size: From Mill to Modern Theory 56
3.5. Variable Returns and Input Proportions: A Special
Case 73
part il A Task-Process Theory of Production 81
4. The Elements of Production Processes and
the Role of Time 83
4.1. Introduction 83
xii Contents
4.2. Tasks and Tools 84
4.3. Elementary Processes and Production Processes 86
4.4. The Description of Production Processes: Network
of Tasks and Input-Output Relationships 98
4.5. Note on the Literature 100
5. Scale-Technology Expansion 102
5.1. Technical Progress and Technology Expansion: The
Feasibility Element in Technical Innovation 102
5.2. Minimum Scale and Technology Expansion: The
General Issues 107
5.3. Tasks, Input Utilization, and Scale-Technology
Expansion 108
5.4. Fund-Input Utilization and Job-Shop Production 112
5.5. Fund-Input Utilization and Straight-Line Production 118
5.6. Concluding Remarks 132
6. Scale-Technology Contraction 136
6.1. Changes of Technical Practice and Technology
Contraction 136
6.2. Scale-Technology Contraction and Maximum
Process Scales: The General Issues 138
6.3. Fund Inputs and Technology Contraction 141
6.4. Flow Inputs and Technology Contraction 147
6.5. Process Scale, Commodity Production Levels, and
Technology Contraction 151
6.6. Concluding Remarks 153
7. Scale, Technology, and Technical Behaviour 155
7.1. Technical Adoption, Learning, and Search:
A General Formulation 155
7.2. Scale and Technical Practice: The Sequential
Scrutiny of Alternatives 165
7.3. Scale and Technical Practice: Ranking of
Alternatives and the Scale-Efficiency Relation 170

8. Scale and Productive Efficiency 175
8.1. Introductory Remarks 175
8.2. Scale-Efficiency Relations and Technology
Expansion 176
8.3. Scale-Efficiency Relations and Technology
Contraction 184
8.4. Scale-Efficiency Relations in Economic Theory:
A Discussion 188
8.5. Concluding Remarks 199
part in. The Analysis of Scale and
Productive Size 203
9. The Relation of Scale and Size and its
Historical Development 205
9.1. History and Theory 205
9.2. Scale, Size, and Fund-Input Utilization 210
9.3. Scale, Speed of ‘Throughput', and Large-Capacity
Production 219
9.4. Scale, Size, and Divisions of the Production Process 224
9.5. Job-Shop and Straight-Line Forms of Production
Organization 235
10. Conclusion: Tasks, Processes, and the
Economic System 242
10.1. Arrangement of Tasks and Technical Practice 242
10.2. Scale and Size in the ‘Task-Process' Framework 253
10.3. Epilogue and Lines of Further Research 269
References 275
Name index 295
Subject index 300