Sraffa’s Price Equations: A Stationary Economy or ‘Normal Positions’?

The paper rejects the thesis that since in Sraffa’s equations the set of input prices is the same as the set of output prices, a stationary economy would be implicitly referred to. This thesis seems to rest on a misinterpretation of the analysis based on ‘normal positions’, in which the constancy of prices is grounded on the persistence, not constancy, of the determining forces. The issue possibly reflects the shift occurred in neoclassical theory from the notion of long-period equilibrium to those of ‘temporary’ or ‘intertemporal’ equilibria. As the author also argues elsewhere, however, that shift originates from difficulties inherent in the role of capital in neoclassical theory, and no need for such a change arises in the classical approach, which Sraffa’s analysis belongs to.