The 2026 JSPE-Routledge Book Prize winner
The 2026 prize winner is Professor Bertram Schefold based on his following books
Awarded Works:
· Schefold, B. Mr. Sraffa on Joint Production and Other Essays. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989.
· Schefold, B. Normal Prices, Technical Change and Accumulation. London and New York: Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Reasons for the Award:
Professor Bertram Schefold studied economics at the University of Basel and the University of Cambridge, where he studied under Piero Sraffa and Luigi Pasinetti. He received his Ph.D. in 1971 for a dissertation that extended Sraffa’s analysis of joint-production systems in Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities. He has taught at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main since 1974 and is now Professor Emeritus there. Although he continues to pursue an active research agenda, his principal theoretical contributions as a Sraffian scholar may be said to be collected in the two books honored by this award.
Part II, the core of Mr. Sraffa on Joint Production and Other Essays, published in 1989, is based on Schefold’s doctoral dissertation. He demonstrated that, in systems of joint production, such properties as the existence of non-negative prices and quantities and the possibility of constructing the standard commodity do not obtain under the same conditions as in single-product systems. By introducing concepts such as all-productive systems and all-engaging systems, he then established mathematically the conditions under which systems of prices and quantities can exist in an economically meaningful form. He also analyzed systems of joint production involving machines of different ages, together with their residual values and second-hand prices, and showed that, when the prices of older machines become negative, economically viable service lives and a meaningful price system can be obtained by truncating processes that are no longer economically viable. Using these concepts and analytical methods, he examined prices and quantities, income distribution, the choice of technique, and truncation in growing economies with fixed capital.
Normal Prices, Technical Change and Accumulation, published in 1997, is a collection of essays, including newly written contributions, that brings together Schefold’s theoretical investigations since the earlier volume. It addresses a wide range of theoretical issues, including “many-product techniques with the properties of single-product systems,” “dominant techniques in systems of joint production,” “von Neumann and Sraffa,” “reduction to dated quantities of labor, roundabout processes and switches of technique in systems with fixed capital,” “the truncation problem of fixed capital,” and “changes in the composition of output.” Through these studies, the arguments developed in the 1989 volume are further deepened, while the scope of the analysis is extended to new issues such as technical progress and environmental problems. Particularly noteworthy is Chapter 18, “Classical Theory and Intertemporal Equilibrium.” Schefold showed that paradoxical phenomena such as the reswitching of techniques and capital-reversing, which had previously been examined mainly within the classical framework of long-run stationary equilibrium, can also arise within a neoclassical framework of intertemporal equilibrium. This is an important theoretical contribution because it demonstrates that the problems of capital aggregation and the choice of technique raised in the Cambridge capital controversies are not peculiar to long-run stationary price systems—or, in Schefold’s terminology, long-run normal-price systems.
The two books are not confined to theoretical research on joint production and related topics. They also contain studies in the history of economics and the history of economic thought concerning classical economics, Walras, Marx, Schumpeter, Marshall, von Neumann, Keynes, and neoclassical theory. This clearly reflects Schefold’s longstanding approach of pursuing theoretical research in parallel with research on the history of economics and economic thought.
Taken together, the two books systematically develop the analysis of the problems raised by Sraffa, including joint production. Within generalized systems of production, they clarify the conditions governing the economic service lives of fixed capital and the occurrence of phenomena such as the reswitching of techniques and capital reversing, as well as their theoretical implications. Schefold’s systematic and rigorous analysis of joint production constitutes an important contribution that greatly extends the scope of production theory, which had developed primarily around single-product systems. His reconsideration, within a framework of intertemporal equilibrium, of the problems of reswitching and capital-reversing—issues that had been discussed mainly within the framework of long-run stationary equilibrium in the Cambridge capital controversies—is likewise an important theoretical achievement. Bringing together these results, the two volumes represent the culmination of his theoretical research over many years and are highly regarded as representative works embodying his outstanding contributions to non-mainstream economics.
Even after the publication of these two books, Schefold has continued energetically to pursue research on the theoretical development of non-mainstream economics. He regards Marx’s theory of value as one form of classical theory grounded in production and distribution and, since the relaunch of the new MEGA (Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe), has consistently supported the publication project as one of its academic advisers. When the new MEGA published the manuscript of Volume III of Capital in 2004, he wrote an extensive “Introduction (Einführung)” that included a history of the controversies surrounding the theoretical issues addressed in the manuscript. In 2016, he further introduced a new perspective on the so-called transformation problem by arguing that, if the input matrices are represented by random matrices and the labor theory of value holds “on average,” then the proposition that “total profits are equal to total surplus value on average” holds (Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2016, vol. 40, pp. 165–199). He subsequently developed this issue further and presented his work at the International Conference Commemorating the 200th Anniversary of Marx’s Birth, organized under the leadership of the Society in December 2018. His paper was the subject of lively discussion at a workshop with Schefold in which members of the Society also participated (Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2019, vol. 16, pp. 261–302; Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, 2021, vol. 18, pp. 317–334). This series of contributions to Marxian economics also forms an important part of non-mainstream economic research that Schefold has pursued over many years and, together with the theoretical achievements collected in the two books cited above, demonstrates both the breadth and continuity of his scholarly contributions. These outstanding scholarly achievements are fully deserving as recognition as a lifetime achievement, in keeping with the purpose of this International Book Prize.
For these reasons, the Committee has decided to confer the International Book Award on Professor Bertram Schefold.
The JSPE-Routledge International Book Prize Committee
Chair: Hideaki Tanaka
Members: Kazuhiro Kurose, Tadasu Matsuo, Sosuke Morimoto, Sadaharu Ooya, Junichi Sekine
The JSPE is happy to announce the creation of the JSPE - Routledge International Book Prize. The Prize is open to its member and non-member colleagues all over the world. The JSPE wishes to play a more active role in promoting political economy and heterodox economics internationally. The prize encourages members of the JSPE to publish their work in English and to challenge the growing dominance of orthodox neo-liberal economics among economists and policy-makers. It also promotes studies in heterodox economics all over the world. We hope this prize in political economy will become equivalent to other great international economic prizes, such as the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, which are given only to mainstream economists.
The prize winner can have a lecture in person or online in the JSPE annual conference in Japan and receives a diploma and monetary grant (sponsored by Routledge).
We would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsor of this book prize, Routledge. Routledge is the world's leading academic publisher in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Routledge publishes thousands of books and journals each year, serving scholars, instructors, and professional communities worldwide.
Yasuo Goto (Chairman of the JSPE)
Objectives of the JSPE - Routledge International Book Prize and subject matter
The Prize will be awarded to a distinguished book which has been published in English in the last quarter century in the areas of political economy, including Marxian, Post-Keynesian and all heterodox economics. The content of the book is related to subject matters including:
(1) Fundamental theories of political economy;
(2) Historical developments in the critique of political economy and economics;
(3) Historical and theoretical analysis of modern capitalism;
(4) Critical analysis of current political economic problems (including crisis, financial instability, economic development, socialism, gender, environment, climate change, etc) and policies;
(5) All subjents reflecting the traditional and analytical perspectives represented by the Japan Society of Political Economy.
Prize nomination and Selection process
The JSPE - Routledge International Book Prize Committee, which consists of Chairperson of the JSPE, Chairperson of the JSPE International Committee and three members of the JSPE, invites each member of the JSPE steering committee and its overseas academic advisers to nominate a candidate for the prize every year. The JSPE International Book Prize Committee reviews proposals and votes for the winner. The Prize winner is announced at the JSPE annual conference.