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The cyclical fall in the rate of profit reveals the basic mechanism of the cyclical fluctuation of the economy. A new synthesis of the Marxist crisis theory necessitates calculating the rate of profit as well as considering factors such as capital-labor relations, realization of value, the organic composition of capital, and money and credit. Empirical studies suggest that the U.S. profit rate in real economy showed no signs of effective recovery during 1975-2008. The shrinking profit share caused by growing employment of non-production workers turns out to be the major factor contributing to the cyclical fall in the rate of profit, which in turn may be traced to the reorganization of the production process before the 1990s and the growing flexibility of employment relations after the 1990s. With long-term stagnation of the rate of profit, a new, financialised model of accumulation that heavily depends on increasing liquidity in the economy took shape in the United States, making the U.S. economy ...

This paper analyzes the growing role played by exports and investment in China’s rapid economic growth since 1978. It examines the reasons for the shift over time in China’s growth model, which occurred in stages, and it questions the sustainability of the recent dependence on exports and investment. It proposes structural changes in China’s growth model and considers the obstacles to such changes. JEL classification:O53, F43, O11

In this paper we study the long-term movement of the profit rate and related variables in the UK, the US, Japan, and the Euro-zone. Since the mid-19th century there have been four long waves in the movement of the average profit rate and rate of accumulation. The average profit rate tended to fall between the late 19th century and the late 20th / early 21st century. The average profit share fell substantially in the transition from the UK hegemony to the US hegemony. The fall of the profit rateand profit share reflected rising wage and taxation costs. Our findings raise important questions regarding the future development of the capitalist world economy.

This paper presents new nonlinear regression estimates of the relationship between inflation and economic growth for 80 countries over the 1961- 2000 period, using middle-income and low-income countries. We also consider the four separate decades between 1961 and 2000. The paper consistently finds that higher inflation is associated with moderate gains in gross domestic product growth up to a roughly 15-18 percent inflation threshold. However, the findings diverge when we divide our full data set according to income levels. With the groupings by decade, the results indicate that inflation and growth will be more highly correlated to the degree that macroeconomic policy is focused on demand management as a stimulus to growth. We consider the implications of these findings for the conduct of monetary policy. One conclusion is that there is no justification for inflation-targeting policies as they are currently being practiced throughout the middle- and low-income countries, that is, to maintain inflation wi...

A group of international scholars and policy-makers met in Beijing on 18th of March 2011, to discuss reforms in the international monetary system. There is a general consensus that there is a need for fundamental reforms in that system, which, even if it has not caused recent imbalances and instability in the global economy, has certainly proved ineffective in addressing them. While such reforms will require extensive discussion and deliberation, the consensus of the Beijing Group was that there was a modest proposal which could be adopted this year by the G20: a limited expansion of the current SDR system. This modest proposal, while limited in scope, could be play an important role in initiating discussions of deeper reforms and which would, at the same time, make a modest contribution to restoring the world's fragile economy to health, helping to achieve the aim expressed in the G20 Pittsburgh declaration for a "strong, sustainable and balanced growth".

This paper presents new non-linear regression estimates of the relationship between inflation and economic growth for 80 countries over the period 1961 – 2000. We perform tests using the full sample of countries as well as sub-samples consisting of OECD countries, middle-income countries, and low-income countries. We also consider the full sample of countries within the four separate decades between 1961 – 2000. Considering our full data set we consistently find that higher inflation is associated with moderate gains in GDP growth up to a roughly 15 – 18 percent inflation threshold. However, the findings diverge when we divide our full data set according to income levels. With the OECD countries, no clear pattern emerges at all with either the inflation coefficient or our estimated turning point. With the middle income countries, we return to a consistently positive pattern of inflation coefficients, though none are statistically significant. The turning points range within a narrow band in this sample, between 14 – 16 percent. With the low income countries, we obtain positive and higher coefficient values on the inflation coefficient than with the middle-income countries. With the groupings by decade, the results indicate that inflation and growth will be more highly correlated to the degree that macroeconomic policy is focused on demand management as a stimulus to growth. We consider the implications of these findings for the conduct of monetary policy. One is that there is no justification for inflation-targeting policies as they are currently being practiced throughout the middle- and low-income countries, that is, to maintain inflation with a 3 – 5 percent band.

Levine & Zervos ( 1998 ) presented cross-country econometric evidence showing that, in a sample of 47 countries, stock market liquidity contributed a significant positive influence on GDP growth between 1976–93. We show that the Levine–Zervos results are not robust to alternative specifications because of the incomplete manner in which they control for outliers in their data. We show that when one properly controls for outliers, stock market liquidity no longer exerts any statistically observable influence on GDP growth.