ABSTRACT
Philip H. Wicksteed is probably the least known of the leading English economists of the last generation, and this was equally true in his own time. Some of Wicksteed's early works on economics relate to production and distribution. The Commonsense is the first English work in which the alternative cost theory is explicitly applied to the ascertainment of the quantity as well as the allocation of resources. Wicksteed recognizes very explicitly that in an economy which practices division of labor, men cannot move freely from one occupation to another. Occupational specialization and the failure to equalize monetary returns even in the case of occupational mobility lead to basic limitations on the alternative cost theory. The laws of return applicable to variations in the quantity of one resource are clearly separated from those applicable to variations in the scale of plant. Wicksteed secures an important position in the history of economic thought primarily through his contributions to the theory of distribution.
