An Essay on the Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution

work by Wicksteed

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June 26, 2026

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Philip Henry Wicksteed's An Essay on the Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution (1894) is a significant work in economics that explores how national income is shared among the factors of production: land, labor, and capital. Wicksteed utilized Euler's Theorem to argue that distribution, based on marginal productivity, accounts for the entire product. This concept is central to understanding functional distribution, which explains the prices of these factors. Wicksteed's work influenced economic thought, particularly concerning the allocation of scarce resources.123

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Philip Henry Wicksteed
…to distribution theory, presented in An Essay on the Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution (1894), was the use of Euler’s Theorem to advance the view that distribution according to the principle of marginal productivity exhausted total product. It is believed that it was Wicksteed who turned George Bernard Shaw…
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…to distribution theory, presented in An Essay on the Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution (1894), was the use of Euler’s Theorem to advance the view that distribution according to the principle of marginal productivity exhausted total product. It is believed that it was Wicksteed who turned George Bernard Shaw…
Read More