A Problem in the Theory of Distribution from Ricardo to Wicksell

The dissertation offers a historical-analytical background of the question of capital in marginal theory, which has been largely missing in the controversies on the subject. It focuses on the problem of measuring capital independently of distribution, present in the classical approach no less than in the later one. It is indeed contended that that problem is what lies at the basis of the difficulties which Ricardo and Marx met in their theory of value and whose incomplete solution favoured the abandonment of the approach. It is however argued that, while the demand and supply analysis of neoclassical theories requires that the independent measurement be ultimately in terms of a single quantity, the same condition emerges as inessential within the classical approach.