Declining Profitability and the Evolution of the US Economy

Declining Profitability and the Evolution of the US Economy PDF Author: Ascension Mejorado
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000956334
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
The 1970s were a pivotal decade for the US economy: deindustrialization broke the power of the labor unions and made possible the redistribution of income in favor of corporate profits; globalization and offshore investments opened alternatives to domestic nonfinancial capital accumulation; domestic productivity growth declined; and labor-saving technology empowered superstar corporations to rapidly gain market share. This book argues that the persistent fall in profitability, leading to the stagflation crisis, was a direct result of the transition from the Fordist phase of capital accumulation, based on large-scale manufacturing, to the neoliberal phase and the rising power of finance. Neoliberalism restored the power of rentiers but not the profit rates of nonfinancial corporations. Falling accumulation rates weakened the growth capacity of nonfinancial corporate firms and secular stagnation became the norm. Neo-Keynesian economists, Larry Summers and Paul Krugman, explained the persistence of secular stagnation with arguments borrowed from Alvin Hansen in the 1930s, such as the declining birth rate or the falling relative prices of investment goods, hence a shortfall of demand. In the Classical paradigm, profitability drives capital accumulation and falling profitability slows down growth. As the accumulation rate declined and the capacity growth diminished, breakdowns in supply links, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prevented large infusions of purchasing power to find matching levels of supply, hence the stagflation crisis returned. The book will be a great asset to researchers and scholars interested in the development of Classical Political Economy concerning issues related to inflation, stagnation, growing inequality, and the next phase of neoliberalism.

Declining Profitability and the Evolution of the US Economy

Declining Profitability and the Evolution of the US Economy PDF Author: Ascension Mejorado
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000956334
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 311

Get Book Here

Book Description
The 1970s were a pivotal decade for the US economy: deindustrialization broke the power of the labor unions and made possible the redistribution of income in favor of corporate profits; globalization and offshore investments opened alternatives to domestic nonfinancial capital accumulation; domestic productivity growth declined; and labor-saving technology empowered superstar corporations to rapidly gain market share. This book argues that the persistent fall in profitability, leading to the stagflation crisis, was a direct result of the transition from the Fordist phase of capital accumulation, based on large-scale manufacturing, to the neoliberal phase and the rising power of finance. Neoliberalism restored the power of rentiers but not the profit rates of nonfinancial corporations. Falling accumulation rates weakened the growth capacity of nonfinancial corporate firms and secular stagnation became the norm. Neo-Keynesian economists, Larry Summers and Paul Krugman, explained the persistence of secular stagnation with arguments borrowed from Alvin Hansen in the 1930s, such as the declining birth rate or the falling relative prices of investment goods, hence a shortfall of demand. In the Classical paradigm, profitability drives capital accumulation and falling profitability slows down growth. As the accumulation rate declined and the capacity growth diminished, breakdowns in supply links, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, prevented large infusions of purchasing power to find matching levels of supply, hence the stagflation crisis returned. The book will be a great asset to researchers and scholars interested in the development of Classical Political Economy concerning issues related to inflation, stagnation, growing inequality, and the next phase of neoliberalism.

The Declining Worker Power Hypothesis

The Declining Worker Power Hypothesis PDF Author: Anna Stansbury
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Rising profitability and market valuations of US businesses, sluggish wage growth and a declining labor share of income, and reduced unemployment and inflation, have defined the macroeconomic environment of the last generation. This paper offers a unified explanation for these phenomena based on reduced worker power. Using individual, industry, and state-level data, we demonstrate that measures of reduced worker power are associated with lower wage levels, higher profit shares, and reductions in measures of the NAIRU. We argue that the declining worker power hypothesis is more compelling as an explanation for observed changes than increases in firms' market power, both because it can simultaneously explain a falling labor share and a reduced NAIRU, and because it is more directly supported by the data.

Competing Schools of Economic Thought

Competing Schools of Economic Thought PDF Author: Lefteris Tsoulfidis
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031585801
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description


The Great Reversal

The Great Reversal PDF Author: Thomas Philippon
Publisher: Belknap Press
ISBN: 0674237544
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
American markets, once a model for the world, are giving up on competition. Thomas Philippon blames the unchecked efforts of corporate lobbyists. Instead of earning profits by investing and innovating, powerful firms use political pressure to secure their advantages. The result is less efficient markets, leading to higher prices and lower wages.

The Dot-com Bubble, the Bush Deficits, and the U.S. Current Account

The Dot-com Bubble, the Bush Deficits, and the U.S. Current Account PDF Author: Aart Kraay
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN:
Category : Balance of payments
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
The authors challenge this view here and develop two alternative interpretations. Both are based on the notion that a bubble (the "dot-com" bubble) has been driving the stock market, but differ in their assumptions about the interactions between this bubble and fiscal policy (the "Bush" deficits). The "benevolent" view holds that a change in investor sentiment led to the collapse of the dot-com bubble and the Bush deficits were a welfare-improving policy response to this event. The "cynical" view holds instead that the Bush deficits led to the collapse of the dot-com bubble as the new administration tried to appropriate rents from foreign investors. The authors discuss the implications of each of these views for the future evolution of the U.S. economy and, in particular, its net foreign asset position."

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change

An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change PDF Author: Richard R. Nelson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674041431
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
This book contains the most sustained and serious attack on mainstream, neoclassical economics in more than forty years. Nelson and Winter focus their critique on the basic question of how firms and industries change overtime. They marshal significant objections to the fundamental neoclassical assumptions of profit maximization and market equilibrium, which they find ineffective in the analysis of technological innovation and the dynamics of competition among firms. To replace these assumptions, they borrow from biology the concept of natural selection to construct a precise and detailed evolutionary theory of business behavior. They grant that films are motivated by profit and engage in search for ways of improving profits, but they do not consider them to be profit maximizing. Likewise, they emphasize the tendency for the more profitable firms to drive the less profitable ones out of business, but they do not focus their analysis on hypothetical states of industry equilibrium. The results of their new paradigm and analytical framework are impressive. Not only have they been able to develop more coherent and powerful models of competitive firm dynamics under conditions of growth and technological change, but their approach is compatible with findings in psychology and other social sciences. Finally, their work has important implications for welfare economics and for government policy toward industry.

Deglobalization, Financial Inequality, and the Green Economy

Deglobalization, Financial Inequality, and the Green Economy PDF Author: Fikret Čaušević
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000987760
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
One of the most challenging issues for the current state of global economy is a highly uneven distribution of global financial assets and liabilities. Drawing on extensive data, this book analyses the new global divisions in economic and financial inequality across the globe in the first two decades of this century. After outlining the context of the global financial system in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008/2009, this book provides a detailed examination of the data on economic and financial inequality, analysing growth rates relative to financial liabilities and assets for all countries where data is available. The central issues in understanding the financial and environmental efficiency of economic growth are also addressed as well as the development of financial and regulatory technologies (FinTech and RegTech). The final part of this book explores the changes in economic growth and financial assets/liabilities as a result of major events in the past three years: Covid Crisis, the rise of inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The focal point of this analysis is the relationship between the speed of economic growth, the use of financial resources for funding that growth and levels of inequality. The green transition, as one of the most important challenges in the global economy, is an integral part of this analysis, along with the inequality in available financial resources for this transition and potential threats to global financial stability. This book will be vital reading for those interested in inequality, financial economics, the global financial system and economic growth.

The Structure and Operation of Modern Economies

The Structure and Operation of Modern Economies PDF Author: Alessandro Romagnoli
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317395077
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This book is about the economy rather than economics. It explores the structures, inner workings and problems of modern economies, showing how the organisations and networks that shape the structure of the economy are arranged to provide society with goods and services. At the centre of the analysis there is the economic system, characterised by organisational components carrying out economic functions (production, consumption, distribution, and establishment and control of the economic activities as well as provision of public goods and services) and by a co-evolving dynamic with the state. The economic system is thus a ‘machine’ that modern states have organised through their laws and international agreements. The book incorporates a historical approach which reveals the varieties, structure and evolution of capitalism as the defining economic system of the modern age. Ultimately, the book demonstrates that the economic sphere and the political sphere are the two powers ruling people’s lives: the economy is the result of their interactions. This book will be of great interest to readers in political economy, economics, sociology and political science.

Economic Theory for the Real World

Economic Theory for the Real World PDF Author: Victor A. Beker
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000998584
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
After the Great Financial Crisis economic theory was fiercely criticized from both outside and inside the discipline for being incapable of explaining a crisis of such magnitude. Slowly but persistently, new strands of economic thought are developing, to replace the old-fashioned neoclassical economic theory, which have a common characteristic: they are better suited to help understand the real-world economy. This book explores the key tenets and applications of these. The book opens with an explanation of the ‘real world’ approach to economics in which theoretical models resemble real world situations, realistic assumptions are made, and factors such as uncertainty, coordination problems and bounded rationality are incorporated. Additionally, the book explores the ramifications of considering the economy as both a dynamic system – with a past, present and future – as well as a complex one. These theoretical precepts of the real world economy are then applied to some of the most pressing economic issues facing the world today including ecological sustainability, the rise of corporate power, the growing dominance of the financial world, and rising unemployment, poverty and inequality. In each case, the book reveals the insights of the shortcomings of the neoclassical approach which fails to illuminate the complexities behind each issue. It is demonstrated that, by contrast, adopting an approach grounded in the real world has the power to produce policy proposals to help tackle these problems. This book is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the economy, including readers from economics and across the social sciences.

Value, Money and Capital

Value, Money and Capital PDF Author: Guido Starosta
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000965996
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
The book presents a high-impact re-reading of core topics in the Marx and Marxist debates including: value-theory, the commodity-nature of money, complex or skilled labour, the determination of the value of labour-power and the nature of extraordinary surplus value. Drawing on this literature, the book provides original and innovative insights into key controversies in contemporary capitalism such as the increasingly intellectual character of commodity-producing labour, the emergence of global value chains, the relevance of ground-rent bearing commodities, and the specific, uneven developmental dynamics of "resource-rich" countries in the global process of capital accumulation. Contributing to the renewed vitality of critical studies of the economic works of Karl Marx, this book will be essential reading for all those interested in contemporary debates within Marxism, as well as readers of political economy, economics, development studies and economic sociology.