> So Mr. Witte concedes he was mistaken in denying that Leontief
> input output analysis provides an empirical implementation of
> Sraffa's work by Mr. Witte's standards.


Leontief I/O analysis is not only rarely used in academic research, 
it is not an "empirical implementation of Sraffa's work."

> Mr. Witte wants a model. Nothing is easier to those who understand
> what's going on.


This is rich. 

> Postulate a 1-good model with an aggregate production function of
> the Leontief fixed coefficients form.


Rob apparently understands absolutely nothing about the obscure
debate he's fixated upon if he thinks doing nothing but making
the aggregate production function model dramatically *more* 
restrictive somehow evades any problems with that approach.

> accounting tautologies. Serious people interested in this
> question would be interested in the Phelps-Brown/Simon/Fisher/
> Shaikh argument cumulating, for now, in the work of McCombie that
> I previously cited.

> The above questioning of the existence of empirical support
> for Solovian growth theory is different from questioning
> aggregation conditions or the meaning of capital.


Again amusing.  If Rob actually ever read any of this literature
rather than abstracts and dictionary articles about it, he'd
find that it is indeed mostly about "aggregation conditions and
the meaning of capital."  The first line of the "McCombie piece
he previously cited" (Rob has apparently never read the article) 
is

"The traditional defense of the use of the aggregate production
 function, in the face of serious problems posed by aggregation
 issues and the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies, is...."

> The latter
> are two separate questions. Some have asked how could the world
> be, in the multi-commodity case, such that Solovian growth theory
> (or other neoclassical theories) apply. 


This is an "aggregation problem," Rob.  Get your dictionary
out, look it up. 

> Note the above cannot be summarized by a strawperson such as
> "complain[t]s about the assumptions of a model."


Yes, Rob, but they're talking about different issues that
empirical implementations of Solovian growth theory.  The
"debate" you want to talk about, but haven't read, is exactly
about "the assumptions of a model."

> It remains the case that it is well-known among economists that
> some have raised good reasons to think Solovian growth theory is
> without theoretical and empirical foundation.


That's right, Rob: just follow Jay Hanson's lead, dig your
heels in, cover your ears, and chant the same thing over
and over again until the bad people pointing out the problems
with it get bored and go away.

To repeat: the handful of papers Rob refers to are not well-known,
and the issues they raise are not considered important "among
economists."  If the critics were to propose alternate methods
which evade the theoretical problems with aggregate production
functions and also provide useful empirical frameworks, the
story might change.

> I think John Tyler's objections were elsewhere. I originally took
> them to be about the well-known difficulties of getting into
> equilibrium.


Anyone unfortunate enough to have read the thread knows very
well Rob completely ignored what Tyler actually said and launched
into an irrelevant diatribe on the CCC.