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Class struggle and economic fluctuations: VAR analysis of the post-war US economy

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  • Deepankar Basu
  • Ying Chen
  • Jong-seok Oh

Abstract

Building on Marx's insights in Chapter 25, Volume I of Capital, an augmented version of the cyclical profit squeeze (CPS) theory offers a plausible explanation of macroeconomic fluctuations under capitalism. The pattern of dynamic interactions that emerges from a 3-variable (profit share, unemployment rate and nonresidential fixed investment) vector autoregression estimated with quarterly data for the postwar U.S. economy is consistent with the CPS theory for the regulated (1949Q4--1975Q1) as well as for the neoliberal periods (starting in 1980 or in 1985). Hence, the CPS mechanism seems to be in operation even under neoliberalism.

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  • Deepankar Basu & Ying Chen & Jong-seok Oh, 2013. "Class struggle and economic fluctuations: VAR analysis of the post-war US economy," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(5), pages 575-596, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:irapec:v:27:y:2013:i:5:p:575-596
    DOI: 10.1080/02692171.2012.760065
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    8. Codrina Rada & Ansel Shiavone & Rudiger von Arnim, 2024. "An exploration of neo-Goodwinian theory of cyclical growth," Working Papers 2403, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    9. 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.
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