An Economic Theory of the Division of Labor: from Adam Smith to Xiaokai Yang and Inframarginal Analysis

In the first part of the book, the author explains the concept of the division of labor in economics from an historical perspective, beginning with ancient Greek and Islamic insights. In what follows, the contributions of Adam Smith, Charles Babbage, Alfred Marshall, Allyn A. Young and Nicholas Kaldor to the topic are dealt with. The second, more technical part of the book concerns the importance of the theory of the division of labor, put forward essentially by Smith and Young, for modern research, representing an introduction to the mathematics of inframarginal analysis and new classical economics.