Information Costs and the Division of Labour

In: International social science journal: ISSJ, Band 41, S. 165-176

Abstract

It is argued that the costs of processing, transmitting, & storing information have taken over the role in economic development -- historically played by transportation costs -- of the main technical force behind increases in the division of labor (DofL). Modern individuals occupy nodes in a much larger network of cooperating individual agents than did the representative man of medieval Europe. Economic development is viewed as the creation of increasingly more complex structures of the DofL, with the average standard of living dependent on the ability to maintain the conditions that make the complex patterns of cooperation feasible. Adam Smith's famous example of pinmaking is used as a paradigmatic case for the DofL. The relation of the DofL to eonomies of scale within the firm is explored, with attention to the effects of computers & robots, & the role of the DofL in the macroeconomy is considered. 2 Illustrations, 15 References. F. S. J. Ledgister