|
Showing 1 - 8 of
8 matches in All Departments
In recent years, there have been a number of new developments in
what came to be known as the "Capital Theory Debates". The debates
took place mainly during the 1960s as a result of Piero Sraffa's
critique of the neoclassical theory according to which the prices
of factors of production directly depend on their relative
scarcities. Sraffa showed that when income distribution changes,
there are many complexities developed within the economic system
impacting on prices in ways which are not possible to predict.
These debates were revisited in the 1980s and again more recently,
along with a parallel literature that has developed among
neoclassical economists and has also looked at the impact of shocks
on an economy. This book summarizes the debates and issues around
the theory of capital and brings to the fore the more recent
developments. It also pinpoints the similarities and differences
between the various approaches and critically evaluates them in
light of available empirical evidence. The focus of the book is on
the price trajectories induced by changes in income distribution
and the resulting shape of the wage rates of profit curves and
frontier. These issues are central to areas such as microeconomics,
international trade, growth, technological change and macro
stability analysis. Each chapter starts with the theoretical issues
involved, followed by their formalization and subsequently with
their operationalization. More specifically, the variables of the
classical theory of value and distribution are rigorously defined
and quantified using actual input-output data from a number of
major economies, but mainly from the USA, over long stretches of
time. The empirical results are not only consistent with the
anticipations of the theory but also further inform and therefore
strengthen its predictive content raising new significant
questions.
In recent years, there have been a number of new developments in
what came to be known as the "Capital Theory Debates". The debates
took place mainly during the 1960s as a result of Piero Sraffa's
critique of the neoclassical theory according to which the prices
of factors of production directly depend on their relative
scarcities. Sraffa showed that when income distribution changes,
there are many complexities developed within the economic system
impacting on prices in ways which are not possible to predict.
These debates were revisited in the 1980s and again more recently,
along with a parallel literature that has developed among
neoclassical economists and has also looked at the impact of shocks
on an economy. This book summarizes the debates and issues around
the theory of capital and brings to the fore the more recent
developments. It also pinpoints the similarities and differences
between the various approaches and critically evaluates them in
light of available empirical evidence. The focus of the book is on
the price trajectories induced by changes in income distribution
and the resulting shape of the wage rates of profit curves and
frontier. These issues are central to areas such as microeconomics,
international trade, growth, technological change and macro
stability analysis. Each chapter starts with the theoretical issues
involved, followed by their formalization and subsequently with
their operationalization. More specifically, the variables of the
classical theory of value and distribution are rigorously defined
and quantified using actual input-output data from a number of
major economies, but mainly from the USA, over long stretches of
time. The empirical results are not only consistent with the
anticipations of the theory but also further inform and therefore
strengthen its predictive content raising new significant
questions.
This book presents an in-depth, novel, and mathematically rigorous
treatment of the modern classical theory of value based on the
spectral analysis of the price-profit-wage rate system. The
classical theory is also subjected to empirical testing to show its
logical consistency and explanatory content with respect to
observed phenomena and key economic policy issues related to
various multiplier processes. In this context, there is an
examination of the trajectories of relative prices when the
distributive variables change, both theoretically and empirically,
using actual input-output data from a number of quite divers e
economies. It is suggested that the actual economies do not behave
like the parable of a one-commodity world of the traditional
neoclassical theory, which theorizes the relative scarcities of
"goods and production factors" as the fundamental determinants of
relative prices and their movement. By contrast, the results of the
empirical analysis are fully consistent with the modern classical
theory, which makes the intersectoral structure of production and
the way in which net output is distributed amongst its claimants
the fundamental determinants of price magnitudes. At the same time,
however, these results indicate that only a few vertically
integrated industries ("industry core" or "hyper-basic industries")
are enough to shape the behaviour of the entire economy in the case
of a disturbance. This fact is reduced to the skew distribution of
the eigenvalues of the matrices of vertically integrated technical
coefficients and reveals that, across countries and over time, the
effective dimensions of actual economies are surprisingly low.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE />
This book presents an in-depth, novel, and mathematically rigorous
treatment of the modern classical theory of value based on the
spectral analysis of the price-profit-wage rate system. The
classical theory is also subjected to empirical testing to show its
logical consistency and explanatory content with respect to
observed phenomena and key economic policy issues related to
various multiplier processes. In this context, there is an
examination of the trajectories of relative prices when the
distributive variables change, both theoretically and empirically,
using actual input-output data from a number of quite divers e
economies. It is suggested that the actual economies do not behave
like the parable of a one-commodity world of the traditional
neoclassical theory, which theorizes the relative scarcities of
"goods and production factors" as the fundamental determinants of
relative prices and their movement. By contrast, the results of the
empirical analysis are fully consistent with the modern classical
theory, which makes the intersectoral structure of production and
the way in which net output is distributed amongst its claimants
the fundamental determinants of price magnitudes. At the same time,
however, these results indicate that only a few vertically
integrated industries ("industry core" or "hyper-basic industries")
are enough to shape the behaviour of the entire economy in the case
of a disturbance. This fact is reduced to the skew distribution of
the eigenvalues of the matrices of vertically integrated technical
coefficients and reveals that, across countries and over time, the
effective dimensions of actual economies are surprisingly low.
Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE />
1. 1 Introduction This book was born out of our reaction to the way
in which the usual texts cover the subject of the history of
economic thought. In most of these texts, there is a tendency to
emphasize the similarities and differences between all the
important economists and form a repository of encyclopedic
knowledge where one can study the seemingly important economic
ideas. In this book, we argue that it is much more fruitful to
focus on the essential ideas of each and every school of economic
thought and relate them to present-day problems, than to engage
into a sterile discussion of the ideas and the lives of the great
economists of the past. Thus, although this book deals with the
history of economic thought, it does not necessarily follow a
historic (in the sense of the order of presentation) approach, but
rather a logical one, that is to say it deals with the social
conditions associated with the emergence of a school of economic
thought, its evolution, and its contemporary in?uence. One cannot
write a book on the history of economic thought without writing
separate chapters on the major economists of the past, that is,
Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, and J. M. Keynes. Of course
these economists formed schools of economic thought, that is, the
classical and the Keynesian.
1. 1 Introduction This book was born out of our reaction to the way
in which the usual texts cover the subject of the history of
economic thought. In most of these texts, there is a tendency to
emphasize the similarities and differences between all the
important economists and form a repository of encyclopedic
knowledge where one can study the seemingly important economic
ideas. In this book, we argue that it is much more fruitful to
focus on the essential ideas of each and every school of economic
thought and relate them to present-day problems, than to engage
into a sterile discussion of the ideas and the lives of the great
economists of the past. Thus, although this book deals with the
history of economic thought, it does not necessarily follow a
historic (in the sense of the order of presentation) approach, but
rather a logical one, that is to say it deals with the social
conditions associated with the emergence of a school of economic
thought, its evolution, and its contemporary in?uence. One cannot
write a book on the history of economic thought without writing
separate chapters on the major economists of the past, that is,
Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Karl Marx, and J. M. Keynes. Of course
these economists formed schools of economic thought, that is, the
classical and the Keynesian.
This book promotes an in-depth understanding of the key mechanisms
that govern the functioning of capitalist economies, pursuing a
Classical Political Economics approach to do so. It explores
central theoretical issues addressed by the classical economists
Smith and Ricardo, as well as Marx, while also operationalizing
more recent theoretical developments inspired by the works of
Sraffa and other modern classical economists, using actual data
from major economies. On the basis of this approach, the book
subsequently provides alternative explanations for various
microeconomic issues such as the determination of equilibrium
prices and their movement induced by changes in income
distribution; the dynamics of competition of firms within and
between industries; the law of tendential equalization of
interindustry profit rates; and international exchanges and
transfers of value; as well as macroeconomic issues concerning
capital accumulation and cyclical economic growth. Given its scope,
the book will benefit all researchers, students, and policymakers
seeking new explanations for observed phenomena and interested in
the mechanisms that give rise to surface economic categories, such
as prices, profits, the unemployment rate, interest rates, and long
economic cycles.
This book promotes an in-depth understanding of the key mechanisms
that govern the functioning of capitalist economies, pursuing a
Classical Political Economics approach to do so. It explores
central theoretical issues addressed by the classical economists
Smith and Ricardo, as well as Marx, while also operationalizing
more recent theoretical developments inspired by the works of
Sraffa and other modern classical economists, using actual data
from major economies. On the basis of this approach, the book
subsequently provides alternative explanations for various
microeconomic issues such as the determination of equilibrium
prices and their movement induced by changes in income
distribution; the dynamics of competition of firms within and
between industries; the law of tendential equalization of
interindustry profit rates; and international exchanges and
transfers of value; as well as macroeconomic issues concerning
capital accumulation and cyclical economic growth. Given its scope,
the book will benefit all researchers, students, and policymakers
seeking new explanations for observed phenomena and interested in
the mechanisms that give rise to surface economic categories, such
as prices, profits, the unemployment rate, interest rates, and long
economic cycles.
|
|