Learning, innovation, increasing returns and resource creation: Luigi Pasinetti’s ‘original sin’ of, and call for a post-classical, economics

Abstract

We draw on the seminal contribution to economics by Luigi Pasinetti, respond to his call to reverse what he saw as the ‘original sin’ of classical economists exacerbated by neoclassical economists, namely the assumption of non-increasing returns to scale, and move towards building a post-classical economics. We outline the contours of a post-classical framework that draws on key themes and contributions from Pasinetti on learning, technical progress, increasing returns, resource creation, trade and catching up, and contributions from within and without economics that are in line with, lend support to and challenge it. We advocate the pressing need and opportune timing for a concerted effort to revitalise ideas from the once vibrant ‘Cambridge School’ of economics and help develop a fresh, more pluralist and inclusive post-classical economics that cuts across divides and opens up opportunities for a less ‘dismal science’.

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