A Theory of Production

This book presents a new analytical framework the theory of production. It is based upon a rigorous reconstruction of the intellectual heritage of economics, but focuses upon issues that are traditionally left aside by economists, such as the distinction between three dimensions of the production process (tasks, capabilities, materials in process), the organizational approach to scale and size, and the idea that different institutional set-ups may be compatible with a given 'objective' standard of efficiency. This study thus fills an important gap in the existing theoretical literature on productive structures.
Part One presents the general conceptual framework and investigates its roots in the received tradition of economic theory. Part Two expounds the pure theory of tasks and processes in which important features of the production structure are considered independently of agents' capabilities and materials' characteristics. Part Three explicitly introduces agents and materials, and argues that the gradual opening up of the above 'hierarchical' theory of production to institutional and historical elements provides an invaluable insight into the relative importance of factors moulding the actual forms of productive organization and processes of structural change.