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This is a subject that I've spent quite a bit of time working on in recent 
years. 
 
I think that Sam is right on target here. The break between classical and 
neoclassical economics occurs at precisely the point where value comes to 
be defined /exclusively/ in terms of opportunity cost. The Buchanan book of 
readings, mentioned by Steven, represents this neoclassical view. 
 
The neoclassical view starts with Carl Menger's PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS. 
(It was also implicit in Jevons, Walras and J. B. Clark's writings relating 
to marginal productivity.) In the U.S., the revolution in economics is 
manifest in the early works on opportunity cost, which were largely 
stimulated by what was called at the time "the Austrian theory of value." 
This theory was promoted by the students of Menger -- Bohm Bawerk and 
Wieser -- and by their translators and interpreters. 
 
A more correct name is the Austrian theory of price and cost. This is 
largely because "value" can have a much broader meaning, as suggested by 
Samuel's initial question. But it is also because the focus of the new 
economics was not on the philosophical, or ethical, concept of value but on 
value as it is manifest in economic interaction. 
 
Three seminal works in this new economics were published in the same year: 
 
Bohm-Bawerk, Eugen, "The Ultimate Standard of Value," Annals of the 
American Academy of Political and Social Science, September, 1894, in 
Shorter Classics of Eugen von Bohm Bawerk, South Holland, Ill.: 1962. 
 
Davenport, Herbert J., "The Formula of Sacrifice," Journal of Political 
Economy, September, 1894. 
 
Green, David I., "Pain-Cost and Opportunity-Cost," Quarterly Journal of 
Economics, pp. 218-229, 1894. 
 
The episode culminated with Herbert Davenport's publication of the 
ECONOMICS OF ENTERPRISE (1914), after which it laid more or less dormant, 
although there was evidence of it in the writings of Philip Wicksteed and 
Frank Knight. It was partly revived by Buchanan, Knight's student. 
 
Today, the theory is to some extent reflected in modern professional 
economics, since opportunity cost is learned very early in a student's 
career. The more subtle aspects of the concept, however, have largely been 
disregarded by the profession. For example, to my knowledge, only Ludwig 
von Mises (and to a small degree, F. A. Hayek) dealt, albeit incompletely, 
with the methodological problems involved in building images of a market 
economy based on the opportunity cost concept. And their work on this 
subject is not learned by either today's methodologists or system builders 
(general equilibrium theorists?). 
 
Nowadays, I think that one is most likely to find these more subtle aspects 
in the writings of Ronald Coase and his followers. 
 
Best wishes, 
 
 
Pat Gunning 
Feng Chia University, Taiwan 
 
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