IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eej/eeconj/v14y1988i3p221-228.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

'Business Cycles,' Turnover and the Rate of Profit: An Empirical Test of Marxian Crisis Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Rudy Fichtenbaum

Abstract

The fragmentary nature of Karl Marx's discussion on crisis has led to a long-standing debate regarding causal factors. This paper is a first attempt to show that turnover plays an important role in explaining cyclical movements in the rate of profit. The results of this study show the importance of including a measure of turnover in the rate of profit and lend support to the view that crises result both from a rising organic composition of capital and realization problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Rudy Fichtenbaum, 1988. "'Business Cycles,' Turnover and the Rate of Profit: An Empirical Test of Marxian Crisis Theory," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 221-228, Jul-Sep.
    • Handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:14:y:1988:i:3:p:221-228
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/eej/Archive/Volume14/V14N3P221_228.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shaikh, Anwar, 1978. "Political Economy and Capitalism: Notes on Dobb's Theory of Crisis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 2(2), pages 233-251, June.
    2. Weisskopf, Thomas E, 1979. "Marxian Crisis Theory and the Rate of Profit in the Postwar U.S. Economy," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 3(4), pages 341-378, December.
    3. James N. Devine, 1987. "Cyclical Over-Investment and Crisis in a Labor-Scarce Economy," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 271-280, Jul-Sep.
    4. Alain Lipietz, 1986. "Behind the Crisis: The Exhaustion of a Regime of Accumulation. A "regulation school" perspective on some French empirical works," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 18(1-2), pages 13-32, March.
    5. Raford Boddy & James Crotty, 1975. "Class Conflict and Macro-Policy: The Political Business Cycle," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 7(1), pages 1-19, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Miguel D. Ramirez, 2019. "Credit, Indebtedness and Speculation in Marx's Political Economy," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 8, pages 46-62, December.
    2. Vaona, Andrea, 2011. "Profit rate dynamics, income distribution, structural and technical change in Denmark, Finland and Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 247-268, September.
    3. Maito, Esteban Ezequiel, 2014. "Income distribution, turnover speed and profit rate in Japan, Chile, Netherlands and United States," MPRA Paper 59283, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Passarella, Marco & Baron, Hervé, 2013. "Capital's Pons Asinorum: the Rate of Turnover in Karl Marx's Analysis of Capitalist Valorisation," MPRA Paper 48306, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 14 Jul 2013.
    5. Maito, Esteban Ezequiel, 2014. "Auge y estancamiento de Japón (1955-2008). Una explicación marxista [Rise and standstill of Japan (1955-2008). A Marxist explanation]," MPRA Paper 53102, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Emiliano López & Facundo Barrera Insua, 2019. "The Specific Conditions of the Valorization of Capital in a Dependent Nation: The Case of Argentina (2002–2014)," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 51(1), pages 75-94, March.
    7. Stavros Mavroudeas, 2019. "Comment on Miguel Ramirez's paper, 'Credit, Indebtedness and Speculation in Marx's Political Economy'," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 8, pages 63-68, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James N. Devine, 1987. "Cyclical Over-Investment and Crisis in a Labor-Scarce Economy," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 271-280, Jul-Sep.
    2. Guilherme Klein Martins & Fernando Rugitsky, 2018. "The commodities boom and the profit squeeze: output and profit cycles in Brazil (1996-2016)," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2018_09, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    3. José Alberro & Joseph Persky, 1979. "The Simple Analytics of Falling Profit Rates, Okishio's Theorem and Fixed Capital," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 11(3), pages 37-41, October.
    4. Deepankar Basu & Ramaa Vasudevan, 2013. "Technology, distribution and the rate of profit in the US economy: understanding the current crisis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(1), pages 57-89.
    5. Eckhard Hein & Marc Lavoie & Till van Treeck, 2011. "Some instability puzzles in Kaleckian models of growth and distribution: a critical survey," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 35(3), pages 587-612.
    6. Alexiou, Constantinos, 2022. "Evaluating the falling rate of profit in the context of the UK economy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 84-94.
    7. Basu, Deepankar & Das, Debarshi, 2015. "Profitability in India’s Organized Manufacturing Sector: The Role of Technology, Distribution, and Demand," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2015-04, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    8. Vaona, Andrea, 2011. "Profit rate dynamics, income distribution, structural and technical change in Denmark, Finland and Italy," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 247-268, September.
    9. Ivan D. TROFIMOV & Nazaria Md. ARIS & Muhammad Khairil Firdaus Bin ROSLI, 2018. "Macroeconomic determinants of the labour share of income: Evidence from OECD economies," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(3(616), A), pages 25-48, Autumn.
    10. Guilherme Klein Martins & Fernando Rugitsky, 2021. "The Long Expansion and the Profit Squeeze: Output and Profit Cycles in Brazil (1996–2016)," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(3), pages 373-397, September.
    11. Rebecca Kalmans, 1997. "Productive Activity, Accumulation, and Growth in Postwar Japan and the United States," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 1-25, June.
    12. Jackson, William A., 2014. "The Factor-Shares Cycle and its Relation to the Business Cycle," EconStor Open Access Book Chapters, in: Business Cycles in Economics: Types, Challenges and Impacts on Monetary Policies, pages 11-26, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    13. M Webber & D Rigby, 1999. "Accumulation and the Rate of Profit: Regulating the Macroeconomy," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 31(1), pages 141-164, January.
    14. Trofimov, Ivan D. & Md. Aris, Nazaria & Bin Rosli, Muhammad K. F., 2018. "Macroeconomic Determinants of the Labour Share of Income: Evidence from OECD Economies," MPRA Paper 85597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Alexiou, Constantinos & Trachanas, Emmanouil, 2020. "Predicting post-war US recessions: A probit modelling approach," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 210-219.
    16. Eckhard Hein, 2006. "Money, interest and capital accumulationin Karl Marx's economics: a monetary interpretation and some similaritiesto post-Keynesian approaches," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 113-140.
    17. Uk Heo & John Bohte, 2012. "Who Pays for National Defense? Financing Defense Programs in the United States, 1947–2007," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 56(3), pages 413-438, June.
    18. Howard Petith, 2003. "Marx's Analysis of the Falling Rate of Profit in the First Version of Volume III of Capital," Working Papers 25, Barcelona School of Economics.
    19. Jacobo, Juan, 2022. "A multi time-scale theory of economic growth and cycles," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 143-155.
    20. Leonardo Vera, 2017. "The Distribution of Power and the Inflation-Unemployment Relationship in the United States: A Post-Keynesian Approach," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 49(2), pages 265-285, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eej:eeconj:v:14:y:1988:i:3:p:221-228. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Victor Matheson, College of the Holy Cross (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eeaa1ea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.