IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/reorpe/v47y2015i1p34-55.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unproductive Activity and Endogenous Technological Change in a Marxian Model of Economic Reproduction and Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Erik K. Olsen

    (Univ. of Missouri Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, USA)

Abstract

This paper integrates unproductive activity into a Marxist growth model based on Marx’s reproduction schemes. Labor extraction and technological change are related to the production and distribution of surplus and thus are endogenous. Unproductive labor is shown to have potentially contradictory effects. It can squeeze profits and reduce growth or increase work intensity and develop productivity enhancing technological change, which increase profitability and growth. Empirical evidence indicates that both effects occurred in the postwar United States. Marx’s reproduction schemes are also shown to rely on a classical growth dynamic in which the profit and savings rates determine the rate of growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Erik K. Olsen, 2015. "Unproductive Activity and Endogenous Technological Change in a Marxian Model of Economic Reproduction and Growth," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 47(1), pages 34-55, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:47:y:2015:i:1:p:34-55
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://rrp.sagepub.com/content/47/1/34.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Marco Veronese Passarella, 2016. "A Marx 'crises' model: The reproduction schemes revisited," Working Papers PKWP1610, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    2. Hyun Woong Park & Dong–Min Rieu, 2018. "A Puzzle about the Monetary Expression of Labor Time : An Equilibrating Mechanism or Just A Coincidence?," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2018-15, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    unproductive activity; Marxist dynamics; endogenous technological change; supervision; labor productivity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • P10 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - General

    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:sae:reorpe:v:47:y:2015:i:1:p:34-55. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.urpe.org/ .

    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.