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Employment dynamics, increasing returns and Marx's falling rate of profit

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  • Satya Prasad Padhi

    (Panjab University, Chandigarh (India))

Abstract

It is assumed that Marx focuses on profits that are to be realized in larger production that permits some surplus production. This understanding underpins the importance of increasing returns embedded in employment dynamics associated with larger employment bases. This organizational form not only permits increases in profits in production but also supports employment-based learning by doing-led new investment opportunities that maintain and increase such profits. (A change in organizational form, the emergence of increasing returns due to scale economies implies that the conception of profits changes from one based on employment dynamics to one that relies more on market power. Accordingly, the present paper argues that empirical analyses should not focus on a falling rate of profits as such: they should rather focus on what factors make clear the behaviour of the rate of profit, and clearly distinguish between the employment dynamics-based profits and the profits that relate more to the returns to higher fixed costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Satya Prasad Padhi, 2021. "Employment dynamics, increasing returns and Marx's falling rate of profit," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 74(298), pages 219-245.
  • Handle: RePEc:psl:pslqrr:2021:36
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    rate of profit; increasing returns; employment dynamics; scale economies; market power;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B5 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches
    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
    • O14 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Industrialization; Manufacturing and Service Industries; Choice of Technology
    • P17 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Performance and Prospects

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