Richard Cantillon: resources and population

Richard Cantillon saw output as bounded by the available stock of land but saw labor as reproducible. Employment would, therefore, depend on the land requirement of the necessities required to reproduce labor as well as on the land requirements of the luxuries demanded by landlords according to their tastes. With his two goods, necessities and luxuries, Cantillon was one of the first economists to show a clear grasp of sectoral interdependence. His model lends itself particularly well to algebraic restatement, and it is the purpose of the present paper to offer one and to solve it for (1) real factor prices, (2) physical outputs and real income distribution, and (3) sustainable employment.