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# Capital Employment Effects

## Definition

The varying impacts that different methods of employing capital have on the quantity of productive labour set in motion and the value added to annual produce. Different capital employments (agriculture, manufacturing, wholesale trade, retail trade) produce systematically different economic outcomes in terms of labour utilization and value creation.

## Source Chapter

Book II, Chapter 5

## Context

Smith systematically analyzes how different capital employments affect economic outcomes, arguing that agriculture is most productive, manufacturing second, and trade least productive in terms of labour and value creation. This analysis forms the basis for his policy recommendations about capital allocation.

## Economic Domain

General Theory

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