Zurechnung und Ertragsgestaltung

Summary

The file is a 1936 journal offprint (Sonderabdruck) from Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Band VII, Heft 3. Its front matter names Hans Mayer, Richard Reisch, and Richard Schüller as the periodical’s editors and Oskar Morgenstern as managing editor; the substantive contribution is Richard von Strigl’s ten-section study, whose numbered parts form the operative chapter structure. Strigl’s aim is to connect Austrian imputation theory with the refined Anglo-American theory of costs and returns.

Bei dieser Sachlage ist eine kurze Untersuchung, welche es sich zur Aufgabe macht, das Grenzgebiet von Ertragslehre und Zurechnungstheorie zu behandeln, wohl nicht als überflüssig anzusehen.

English translation: In this state of affairs, a brief investigation that sets itself the task of treating the borderland between the theory of yield and the theory of imputation can hardly be regarded as superfluous.

Sections I–III construct the abstract basis: factors are infinitely divisible, proportional enlargement of a given factor combination leaves coefficients unchanged, and the inquiry isolates factor proportions from scale effects. Strigl’s key move is to derive diminishing returns from economic selection among technically possible combinations. A combination in which adding one factor to a fixed quantity of another yielded proportional or overproportional product would be wasteful and excluded from rational calculation.

Der damit abgeleitete allgemeine Grundsatz des Zusammenwirkens von unbeschränkt teilbaren Produktionsmitteln wird zu lauten haben: Bei konstanter Menge eines Produktionsmittels (einer Produktionsmittelgruppe) bedeutet die Vermehrung eines mit diesem kombinierten Produktionsmittels (einer Produktionsmittelgruppe) einen unterproportional wachsenden Gesamtertrag.

English translation: The general principle thus derived for the interaction of unlimitedly divisible means of production must run: given a constant quantity of one means of production (or group of means of production), an increase in another means of production (or group of means of production) combined with it yields a total output that grows less than proportionally.

Section IV turns this returns theorem into imputation theory. Marginal productivity is not merely a technical coefficient; it is the basis on which a unit of a factor and the marginal product dependent on it become equivalent for economic disposition. Under the homogeneous-linear case, direct marginal-product imputation and residual imputation coordinate so that the product is exhausted.

Damit werden die Einheit des Produktionsmittels und das von dieser „abhängige“ Grenzprodukt für den Dispositionsbereich des Wirtschafters gegenseitig ersetzbar oder wertgleich.

English translation: Thereby, within the entrepreneur's scope of disposition, the unit of the means of production and the marginal product "dependent" upon it become mutually substitutable, or equal in value.

Sections V–VI introduce the indivisible “Quantenfaktor.” Where one factor comes only in lumps, marginal-product imputation cannot be applied symmetrically. The divisible factor receives its marginal product; the quantum factor receives only a residual, and only if production has passed the maximum of the divisible factor’s average product. Sections VII–VIII apply this to durable fixed capital: a machine or plant is first produced by divisible inputs and then used as an indivisible factor over finite production runs.

Die Kosten, welche zu seiner Erzeugung aufgewendet worden sind, sind „historische“ Kosten, welche für seinen aktuellen Wert, der sich aus der Zurechnung ergibt, wie auch für die Art der Verwendung des Quantenfaktors völlig irrelevant sind.

English translation: The costs that were expended for its production are "historical" costs, which are entirely irrelevant both for its current value—arising from imputation—and for the manner in which the quantum factor is employed.

This distinction lets Strigl separate current operation from replacement. Fixed investment costs do not determine present value; present value is imputed residually from output. Yet reproduction of the fixed capital requires that residual receipts eventually cover renewal costs. Section IX translates the argument into cost curves: under free competition the relevant supply curve is the rising marginal-cost branch, while production on a falling-cost branch is unstable.

Es kann sich der Betrieb niemals in jenem Zustand befinden, in welchem eine Ausdehnung der Produktion zu geringeren Stückkosten führt.

English translation: The firm can never find itself in a state in which an expansion of production would lead to lower unit costs.

Under monopolistic competition, however, a downward-sloping demand curve may stop expansion before minimum cost, producing underutilization rather than necessarily high monopoly profit. Strigl then distinguishes adaptation with given fixed capital from changes in capital structure, relative factor supplies, and genuine technical progress, which creates a new basis for selection and imputation.

The concluding section defends the method. The assumptions are idealized, but they clarify relations later obscured by frictions, taxation, family labor, small-firm advantages, and scale effects.

Ein volles Einsetzen aller Details und aller Voraussetzungen der empirischen Wirklichkeit in die allgemeinen Gesetze ist ja niemals möglich.

English translation: A full incorporation of all the details and all the presuppositions of empirical reality into the general laws is, after all, never possible.

The work’s relevance lies in its synthesis: marginal productivity becomes an Austrian valuation relation, fixed costs become historically sunk yet reproductively significant, and cost theory is reinterpreted through imputation, capital durability, and market form.