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Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3760-963X
AccessType
Campus-Only Access for Five (5) Years
Document Type
dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Degree Program
Economics
Year Degree Awarded
2021
Month Degree Awarded
May
First Advisor
Deepankar Basu
Second Advisor
Naoki Yoshihara
Third Advisor
Nikunj Kapadia
Subject Categories
Political Economy
Abstract
This dissertation revisits the long-standing debate on the Marxian falling-rate-of-profit hypothesis---rising organic composition of capital leads to lower profitability. On the theoretical front, I construct a Marxian input-output model that considers the turnover of capital, which has long been neglected by the input-output literature. Within this framework, I generalize the Fundamental Marxian Theorem, the Okishio Theorem, and some other well-known propositions in the literature. However, the falling-rate-of-profit hypothesis is found to be theoretically indeterminate; in particular, the determinate result as obtained by Laibman (1982) is overturned. On the empirical front, I first apply the structural vector autoregression method on annual time series data of the United States for the period 1929--2019. I find no significant long-run effect of the organic composition of capital on profitability, regardless of how the rate of profit and organic composition of capital are measured. I then apply the difference and system generalized method of moments on a large cross-country industry-level panel dataset derived from the World Input-Output Database for the period 2001--2014. The finding is mixed: If the organic composition of capital is measured in nominal terms, it is found to have significant long-run negative effect on the rate of profit; if it is measured in real terms, the effect is instead significantly positive.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.7275/22468666.0
Recommended Citation
Liang, Junshang, "CONSTRUCTING A MARXIAN INPUT-OUTPUT MODEL CONSIDERING THE TURNOVER OF CAPITAL AND REVISITING THE FALLING-RATE-OF-PROFIT HYPOTHESIS" (2021). Doctoral Dissertations. 2193.
https://doi.org/10.7275/22468666.0
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/2193
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