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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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    3. Jose Barrales-Ruiz & Codrina Rada & Rudiger von Arnim, 2024. "Evidence on Goodwin cycles across US golden age and neoliberal era," Working Papers 2410, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    4. Ivan Mendieta‐Muñoz & Doğuhan Sündal, 2022. "Business cycles, financial conditions, and nonlinearities," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(2), pages 343-383, May.
    5. Marco Stamegna, 2024. "Induced innovation, the distributive cycle, and the changing pattern of labour productivity cyclicality: an SVAR analysis for the US economy," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 41(3), pages 881-929, October.
    6. Joao Paulo A. de Souza, 2017. "Real wages and labor-saving technical change: evidence from a panel of manufacturing industries in mature and labor-surplus economies," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 151-172, March.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Stamegna, Marco, 2022. "Induced innovation, the distributive cycle, and the changing pattern of labour productivity cyclicality: a SVAR analysis for the US economy," MPRA Paper 113855, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. 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).
    11. Joao Paulo A. de Souza, 2014. "Real wages and labor-saving technical change: evidence from a panel of manufacturing industries in mature and labor-surplus economies," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2014-03, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
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