Hayek’s short, single-author theoretical journal article surveys and criticizes the Austrian “imputation” problem: how the value of jointly used production goods can be attributed to particular productive factors. Its scope is conceptual rather than empirical. The essay moves through definition, theoretical placement, older productivity doctrines, Austrian solutions, marginal productivity, misunderstandings, and a final reformulation. Hayek begins from complementarity: marginal utility can explain isolated consumption goods, but production goods work jointly, so one achieved utility must yield several valuations.
Hier ist der im einzelnen Fall erzielte Nutzen von mehreren Gütern bewirkt und abhängig, und es sind daher von ihm, will man die Erklärung des Wertes aus dem Nutzen beibehalten, mehrere Werte abzuleiten.
English translation: Here the utility obtained in the particular case is brought about by, and dependent upon, several goods, and therefore, if one is to retain the derivation of value from utility, several values must be derived from it.
This makes imputation not an appendix but the hinge between subjective value and distribution. Since factor prices and incomes must ultimately be explained from individual valuations, Hayek insists that the issue first be posed in Wieser’s “simple economy,” without exchange.
Eine befriedigende Lösung des Zurechnungsproblems ist darum die Voraussetzung für eine definitive Begründung der Verteilungstheorie auf der subjektiven Wertlehre.
English translation: A satisfactory solution of the imputation problem is therefore the precondition for a definitive grounding of the theory of distribution upon the subjective theory of value.
Historically, older doctrines asked which factors were productive, but lacked a value theory independent of physical causation. Ricardo’s rent theory glimpsed the issue only partially. Marginal utility, Hayek argues, first made it possible to distinguish economic success from its technical causes.
Solange für das Ausdrucksmittel des wirtschaftlichen Erfolges, den Wert, keine hinreichende Erklärung gefunden war, konnte ein Versuch, die Beteiligung der Produktionsfaktoren an diesem Erfolg zu ermitteln, nicht glücken.
English translation: So long as no adequate explanation had been found for the expression of economic success—namely, value—any attempt to determine the participation of the factors of production in that success could not succeed.
The central survey contrasts Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser. Böhm-Bawerk extends Menger’s dependent-utility and substitution logic: a factor’s value is read from the loss caused by its absence, modified by replacement and alternative use. Hayek finds this insufficient for genuine complementarity, because losses trigger shifts across the whole production plan. Wieser advances further by treating production as a system of equations linking products and factors across multiple uses, and by demanding full allocation of product value among factors.
Wieser betrachtet den Wert als die Rechenform des Nutzens.
English translation: Wieser regards value as the computational form of utility.
Yet Wieser remains circular: his cost law presupposes factor values in order to determine product values, then derives factor values from product values. Marginal productivity offers a second path where factor proportions vary, but Hayek treats it as a supplement, not an independent solution, because productivity still requires valuation rather than mere physical measurement.
Much of the essay clears away misunderstandings. Imputation is neither moral desert nor a special physical causality. It does not identify a measurable product-portion created by each input, but a value share.
Der Zweck der Zurechnungslehre der Grenznutzenschule ist dagegen, trotz der manchesmal scheinbar widersprechenden Ausdrucksweise, ausschließlich eine direkte Bestimmung des den einzelnen Faktoren zuzurechnenden Wertanteiles, ohne vorherige Ermittlung einer physischen Quote.
English translation: The aim of the imputation theory of the marginal-utility school is, by contrast, despite the sometimes seemingly contradictory mode of expression, exclusively a direct determination of the share of value to be imputed to the individual factors, without a prior ascertainment of a physical quota.
The final critique is Hayek’s main contribution. Existing theories falsely assume an independently given product value and an already chosen production arrangement. But value expresses the correct use of a good within an economic system; product value and factor value must be explained together.
Diesen Zusammenhang hat die Zurechnungslehre in ihrer gegenwärtigen Form zerrissen, indem sie bei der Bestimmung des Wertes der Produktivgüter von einem unabhängig davon gegebenen Wert des Produktes und damit von einer als gegeben betrachteten Einrichtung der Produktion ausging.
English translation: The imputation theory in its present form has severed this connection by starting, in determining the value of productive goods, from a value of the product given independently thereof, and hence from an organization of production regarded as given.
Hayek therefore reformulates the problem: not “what part of a given product value belongs to each factor?” but how scarce productive goods, given their possible uses and complements, limit the economically permissible expansion of each production line.
Das Zurechnungsproblem wird identisch mit der Frage, wie bei gegebenen Mengen von Produktivgütern und gegebenen Bedürfnisskalen die vorhandenen Produktivgüter auf die verschiedenen Produktionszweige aufgeteilt werden müssen.
English translation: The imputation problem becomes identical with the question of how, given quantities of productive goods and given scales of needs, the available productive goods must be distributed among the various branches of production.
The article’s relevance lies in this shift from partial imputation to system-wide allocation. Hayek does not offer a completed solution; he notes that Walrasian mathematical economics has approached related problems without yet solving this one. The essay’s enduring point is methodological: subjective value theory must ground distribution without objective costs, physical productivity, or circular appeal to product prices.
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