IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bge/wpaper/194.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Capitalism, Unemployment and the Transition to the Contemporary Pattern of Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Howard Petith

Abstract

A new model of unemployment based on an idea of Marx is presented and used to interpret the development of the British economy from the beginning of capitalism to the present. It is shown that unemployment may be created purposely by capitalists in order to weaken the bargaining position of the workers. This mechanism leads to complex temporal pattern of unemployment and can explain why wages took almost a century and a half to react to the growing capital to labour ratio that characterised early British capitalism.

Suggested Citation

  • Howard Petith, 2005. "Capitalism, Unemployment and the Transition to the Contemporary Pattern of Growth," Working Papers 194, Barcelona School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:194
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.barcelonagse.eu/sites/default/files/working_paper_pdfs/194.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2000. "Natural Selection and the Origin of economic Growth," Working Papers 2000-18, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    2. Robert E. Hall & Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Why do Some Countries Produce So Much More Output Per Worker than Others?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(1), pages 83-116.
    3. Jones Charles I., 2001. "Was an Industrial Revolution Inevitable? Economic Growth Over the Very Long Run," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(2), pages 1-45, August.
    4. Richard A. Breche & Zhiqi Chen & Ehsan U. Choudhri, 2002. "Unemployment and Growth in the Long Run: An Efficiency-Wage Model with Optimal Savings," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 43(3), pages 875-894, August.
    5. Oded Galor, 2006. "The Demographic Transition," Working Papers 2006-24, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    6. Allin Cottrell & William A. Darity, Jr., 1988. "Marx, Malthus, and Wages," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 20(2), pages 173-190, Summer.
    7. A. W. Phillips, 1958. "The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 25(100), pages 283-299, November.
    8. Bowles, Samuel, 1985. "The Production Process in a Competitive Economy: Walrasian, Neo-Hobbesian, and Marxian Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 16-36, March.
    9. John Laitner, 2000. "Structural Change and Economic Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 67(3), pages 545-561.
    10. Bean, Charles & Pissarides, Christopher, 1993. "Unemployment, consumption and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 837-854, May.
    11. Shapiro, Carl & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1984. "Equilibrium Unemployment as a Worker Discipline Device," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 433-444, June.
    12. Booth,Alison L., 1994. "The Economics of the Trade Union," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521468398.
    13. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2002. "Natural Selection and the Origin of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1133-1191.
    14. Oded Galor & David N. Weil, 1999. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," Working Papers 99-35, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    15. Galor, Oded & Moav, Omer, 2001. "Evolution and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 718-729, May.
    16. David N. Weil & Oded Galor, 2000. "Population, Technology, and Growth: From Malthusian Stagnation to the Demographic Transition and Beyond," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(4), pages 806-828, September.
    17. Galor, Oded & Mountford, Andrew, 2002. "Why are a Third of People Indian and Chinese? Trade, Industrialization and Demographic Transition," CEPR Discussion Papers 3136, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Oded Galor, 2006. "The Demographic Transition," Working Papers 2006-24, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Howard Petith, 2005. "Capitalism, Unemployment and the Transition to the Contemporary Pattern of Growth," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 649.05, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    2. Jacob L. Weisdorf, 2006. "From domestic manufacture to Industrial Revolution: long-run growth and agricultural development," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(2), pages 264-287, April.
    3. Ron W. Nielsen, 2017. "Changing the Direction of the Economic and Demographic Research," Papers 1708.08673, arXiv.org.
    4. Ron W. NIELSEN, 2017. "Changing the direction of the economic and demographic research," Journal of Economics Library, KSP Journals, vol. 4(3), pages 288-309, September.
    5. Dietrich Vollrath, 2009. "The dual economy in long-run development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 287-312, December.
    6. Kevin H. O'Rourke & Ahmed S. Rahman & Alan M. Taylor, 2007. "Trade, Knowledge and the Industrial Revolution," Development Working Papers 230, Centro Studi Luca d'Agliano, University of Milano.
    7. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor, 2011. "Dynamics and Stagnation in the Malthusian Epoch," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2003-2041, August.
    8. Luis Angeles, 2010. "Demographic transitions: analyzing the effects of mortality on fertility," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(1), pages 99-120, January.
    9. Joel Mokyr & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2012. "Understanding Growth in Europe, 1700–1870: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Sociology, National Research University Higher School of Economics, vol. 13(5), pages 57-102.
    10. Leonid Azarnert, 2006. "Free Education: For Whom, Where and When?," DEGIT Conference Papers c011_024, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    11. Oded Galor & Omer Moav, 2001. "Evolution and growth," Working Papers 2001-45, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    12. Galor, Oded & Moav, Omer, 2001. "Evolution and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 718-729, May.
    13. Javier Birchenall, 2007. "Escaping high mortality," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 351-387, December.
    14. Oded Galor, 2010. "The Demographic Transition: Causes and Consequences," Working Papers 2010-12, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    15. Matthias Doepke, "undated". "Growth Takeoffs," UCLA Economics Online Papers 409, UCLA Department of Economics.
    16. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Strulik, Holger, 2013. "The history augmented Solow model," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 134-149.
    17. Quamrul Ashraf & Oded Galor & Ömer Özak, 2010. "Isolation and Development," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 8(2-3), pages 401-412, 04-05.
    18. Nils‐Petter Lagerlöf, 2003. "Mortality and Early Growth in England, France and Sweden," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 105(3), pages 419-440, September.
    19. Oded Galor, 2012. "The demographic transition: causes and consequences," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 6(1), pages 1-28, January.
    20. Timo Boppart & Josef Falkinger & Volker Grossmann & Ulrich Woitek & Gabriela W�thrich, 2008. "Qualifying Religion: The Role of Plural Identities for Educational Production," IEW - Working Papers 360, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Capitalism; Marx; Great Britain; unemployment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E11 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Marxian; Sraffian; Kaleckian
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • N33 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models
    • O51 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - U.S.; Canada
    • P1 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bge:wpaper:194. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Bruno Guallar (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bargses.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.