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Piero Sraffa (1898-1983) was an influential
economist.

He was born in Turin, Italy, the son of Angelo
Sraffa, a Professor in commercial law, and Irma.
He studied in his town and graduated at the local
university with a work on inflation in Italy
during and after WWI. Notably, his tutor was Luigi
Einaudi, one of the most important Italian
economists and later a president of the Italian
Republic.

From 1921 to 1922 he studied in London at the
London School of Economics. In 1922 he was
appointed as Director of the provincial labour
department in Milan, then as Professor in
Political economy first in Perugia, and later in
Cagliari, Sardinia. Here he met Antonio Gramsci
(the most important leader of Italian Communist
Party). They became close friends, partly due to
their shared ideological views - Sraffa was at
this time a radical Marxism|marxist (see
http://csf.colorado.edu/pkt/pktauthors/Vienneau.Ro
bert/sraffa.html). He also was already in contact
with Filippo Turati, perhaps the most important
leader of Italian Socialist Party, whom he
allegedly met and frequently visited in Rapallo,
where his family had a holiday villa.

In 1925 he wrote about returns to scale and
perfect competition, underlining some doubtful
points of Alfred Marshall's theory of the firm.
This work was completed in an article he published
the following year.

In 1927, his as yet undiscussed theory of value
(economics)|theory of value, but also his risky
political ideas, his compromising friendship with
Gramsci (who had already been imprisoned under
Fascism - notably, Sraffa had brought him the
materials, literally pens and paper, with which
Gramsci would write his "Quaderni dal Carcere"),
brought John Maynard Keynes to prudentially invite
Sraffa to the University of Cambridge, where he
was initially assigned a lectureship. After a few
years, Keynes created ex novo for him the charge
of Marshall Librarian. Sraffa joined the so-called
"cafeteria group", together with Frank P. Ramsey
and Ludwig Wittgenstein, a sort of informal club
that discussed of Keynes' theory of probability
and Friedrich Hayek's theory on business cycles.
At this time, also due to Keynes' influence,
Sraffa began his research into the life and work
of David Ricardo, which he undertook with an
extraordinary degree of conscientiousness:  George
Stigler was to write later "Ricardo was a
fortunate man... And now, 130 years after his
death, he is as fortunate as ever : he has been
befriended by Sraffa."

His "The Production of Commodities by Means of
Commodities" was an attempt to perfect Classical
Economics'  theory of value (economics)|theory of
value, as originally developed by David Ricardo
and others. He aimed to demonstrate flaws in the
mainstream neoclassical economics|neoclassical
theory of value and develop and alternative
analysis. In particular, Sraffa's technique of
aggregating capital as dated inputs of labour led
to the Capital controversy|Cambridge capital
controversy.

There was and remains controversy about whether
Sraffa's work truly constituted a refutation of
neoclassical economics.  Many post-Keynesian
economics|post-Keynesian economists use Sraffa's
critique as justification for abandoning
neoclassical analysis and exploring other models
of economic behavior.  Others see his work as
compatible with neoclassical economics, as
developed in modern general equilibrium models. 
Nonetheless, Sraffa's work, particularly his
interpretation of Ricardo and his "The Production
of Commodities by Means of Commodities", is seen
as the starting point of the Neo-Ricardian school
in the 1960s.

Notably, Sraffa was associated with Ludwig
Wittgenstein, who credited him with making
important insights into his philosophical works
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the
Philosophical Investigations.

Sraffa was described as a very intelligent man,
with a proverbial shyness and a real devotion for
study and books. His famous library contained more
than 8,000 volumes, now partly in the Trinity
College Library.

In 1972 he was attributed a honorary doctorate by
Paris' university (Sorbonne), and in 1976 he
received another one from Madrid's university. 

He became rich after a long-term investment on
Japanese government bonds, made the day after the
nuclear bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; a
popular story tells that he'd received a huge
amount of money which for more than a decade he'd
refused to invest, waiting for a "safe"
opportunity. He correctly reasoned that Japan
wouldn't remain a poor country for long.

==External links==

*
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/sraffa.htm
Profile of Piero Sraffa at the
http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/home.htm History of
Economic Thought website.

*
http://rabbit.trin.cam.ac.uk/~jon/Msscolls/Sraffa.
html Piero Sraffa Archives homepage at Trinity
College, Cambridge.  Contains an online catalogue
of Sraffa's personal and professional papers.