IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/cambje/v37y2013i2p379-402.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Labour productivity and the law of decreasing labour content

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Flaschel
  • Reiner Franke
  • Roberto Veneziani

Abstract

This paper analyses labour productivity and the law of decreasing labour content (LDLC) originally formulated by Farjoun and Machover. While accepting the validity of that law, it shows that the conventional measures of labour productivity used in the literature may be rather misleading, because they are based on monetary aggregates. Theoretically and empirically sounder measures are provided by standard Marxian real labour values. The notion of labour content and the LDLC are therefore central to understanding capitalist economies. Some rigorous theoretical relations between different forms of profit-driven technical change and productivity are derived in a general input–output framework with fixed capital, and these provide foundations to the LDLC. These theoretical propositions are empirically illustrated using a new dataset of the German economy. Copyright , Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Flaschel & Reiner Franke & Roberto Veneziani, 2013. "Labour productivity and the law of decreasing labour content," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 37(2), pages 379-402.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:379-402
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bes025
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oscar De Juan & Eladio Febrero, 2000. "Measuring Productivity from Vertically Integrated Sectors," Economic Systems Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 65-82.
    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. Jonathan F. Cogliano & Roberto Veneziani & Naoki Yoshihara, 2016. "The Dynamics of Exploitation and Class in Accumulation Economies," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(2), pages 242-290, May.
    2. Veneziani, Roberto & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2014. "One Million Miles to Go: Taking the Axiomatic Road to Defining Exploitation," Discussion Paper Series 615, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    3. Jonathan F Cogliano & Roberto Veneziani & Naoki Yoshihara, 2024. "The dynamics of international exploitation," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 56(5), pages 1420-1446, August.
    4. Yoshihara, Naoki & Veneziani, Roberto, 2023. "The general equilibrium effects of localised technological progress: A Classical approach," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    5. Yoshihara, Naoki & Veneziani, Roberto, 2023. "The measurement of labour content: An axiomatic approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 392-402.
    6. Jonathan F. Cogliano & Roberto Veneziani & Naoki Yoshihara, 2019. "Exploitation, skills, and inequality," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 77(2), pages 208-249, April.
    7. Yoshihara, Naoki & Veneziani, Roberto, 2013. "The Measurement of Labour Content: A General Approach," Discussion Paper Series 587, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    8. Nadia Garbellini & Ariel Luis Wirkierman, 2014. "Productivity Accounting in Vertically (Hyper-)integrated Terms: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Empirics," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 154-190, February.
    9. Michael Gaul, 2024. "A Discussion of Marx’s Account of Technical Progress by Means of Wage Curves and Their Historical Evolution," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 56(2), pages 267-299, June.
    10. Rosser, J. Barkley & Rosser, Marina V., 2023. "The Bielefeld School of economics, Post Keynesian economics, and dynamic complexity," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 454-465.
    11. repec:ums:papers:2014-010 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Jonathan F. Cogliano, 2017. "Surplus Value Production and Realization in Marxian Theory - Applications to the U.S., 1987-2015," Working Paper Series 2017-01, Dickinson College, Department of Economics.
    13. Flaschel, Peter & Fröhlich, Nils & Veneziani, Roberto, 2011. "The sources of profitability," MPRA Paper 30861, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Roca, Jordi & Serrano, Monica, 2007. "Income growth and atmospheric pollution in Spain: An input-output approach," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 230-242, June.
    2. Garbellini, Nadia & Wirkierman, Ariel, 2009. "Changes in the productivity of labour and vertically integrated sectors — an empirical study for Italy," MPRA Paper 18871, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Nadia Garbellini & Ariel Luis Wirkierman, 2014. "Productivity Accounting in Vertically (Hyper-)integrated Terms: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Empirics," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 154-190, February.
    4. Sandro Montresor & Giuseppe Vittucci Marzetti, 2011. "The deindustrialisation/tertiarisation hypothesis reconsidered: a subsystem application to the OECD7," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 35(2), pages 401-421.
    5. Garbellini, Nadia, 2010. "Structural Change and Economic Growth: Production in the Short Run — A generalisation in terms of vertically hyper-integrated sectors," MPRA Paper 25684, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Brondino, Gabriel, 2019. "Productivity growth and structural change in China (1995–2009): A subsystems analysis," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 183-191.
    7. Garbellini, Nadia, 2009. "Natural rates of profit, natural prices, and the actual economic systems - a theoretical framework," MPRA Paper 15941, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • D57 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Input-Output Tables and Analysis
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • C67 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Input-Output Models

    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:oup:cambje:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:379-402. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/cje .

    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.