Abstract

Questions like “what is value?µ and “how does it form?µ have accompanied the debate on political economy since the very beginning. Despite the foundational aspect, consulting the more than 5,700 articles of the “Ecological Economicsµ journal, only eight refer to “theories of valueµ. This paper aims to reconstruct the debate around the theories of value with a particular focus on the energy theory of value. The theory is based on a partially closed Leontief model to include labour and Government into the transaction matrix. The paper discusses the methodological issues connected to these modifications of traditional input-output analysis, and proposes some improvements (regarding gross capital formation) with empirical reference to the Italian economy for the year 2015. The correlation between the embedded energy and the economic value emerging from the results demonstrates the interdependence between energy inputs and economic outputs. As claimed by Costanza (1980), this seriously compromises the possibility of real decoupling. The emerging correlation rather suggests considering the energy-work as a primary factor of production. Finally, the opportunity of extending the concept of work in a physical sense offers the possibility of linking the classical approach regarding value with the more recent World-Ecology conceptual framework.