Commodity Content in a General Input-Output Model: A Comment

Abstract

This paper critically analyses the approach to the determination of values, or commodity contents, developed by Fujimoto and Opocher (2009). Even setting aside various problematic definitional issues, the broader implications of the approach for classical theory are unclear. First, the value-theoretic definitions of skill differentials and bads capture at best necessary conditions and it is unlikely that such definitions can be provided by focusing only on the technological data of the economy. Second, the approach has various interesting implications concerning the relation between productivity and exploitation that directly contradict some of the authors' claims.Value, Bads, Skilled and Unskilled Labour, Productivity and Exploitation