IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/kch/wpaper/sdes-2019-13.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Technical progress, capital accumulation, and distribution

Author

Listed:
  • Naoki Yoshihara

    (School of Management, Kochi University of Technology)

  • Roberto Veneziani

    (Queen Mary University of London)

Abstract

We study the effects of innovations on income distribution in capitalist economies characterised by a drive to accumulate. Consistent with the basic intuitions of Marx’s theory of technical change, we show that there is no obvious relation between ex-ante profitable innovations and the income distribution that actually emerges in equilibrium, and individually rational choices of technique do not necessarily lead to optimal outcomes. Innovations may even cause the disappearance of all equilibria. Methodologically, it is not possible to fully understand the ‘creative destruction’ induced by innovations without capturing the dialectic between individual choices and aggregate outcomes, and the complex network of relations typical of capitalist economies.

Suggested Citation

  • Naoki Yoshihara & Roberto Veneziani, 2019. "Technical progress, capital accumulation, and distribution," Working Papers SDES-2019-13, Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management, revised Nov 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:kch:wpaper:sdes-2019-13
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.souken.kochi-tech.ac.jp/seido/wp/SDES-2019-13.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2019
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allen, Robert C., 2011. "Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199596652.
    2. Kurz,Heinz D. & Salvadori,Neri, 1997. "Theory of Production," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521588676, January.
    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. Yoshihara, Naoki & Veneziani, Roberto, 2023. "The general equilibrium effects of localised technological progress: A Classical approach," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    2. Chilosi, David & Federico, Giovanni, 2015. "Early globalizations: The integration of Asia in the world economy, 1800–1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-18.
    3. Allen, Robert C., 2012. "Backward into the future: The shift to coal and implications for the next energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 17-23.
    4. Kym Anderson & Anna Strutt, 2014. "Emerging economies, productivity growth and trade with resource-rich economies by 2030," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 58(4), pages 590-606, October.
    5. Kazuhiro Kurose, 2022. "A two-class economy from the multi-sectoral perspective: the controversy between Pasinetti and Meade–Hahn–Samuelson–Modigliani revisited," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 239-270, April.
    6. Massimo Cingolani, 2015. "Sylos Labini su Marx: implicazioni per la politica economica (Sylos Labini on Marx: economic policy implications)," Moneta e Credito, Economia civile, vol. 68(269), pages 81-147.
    7. Keiran Sharpe, 2006. "Effective demand in a stylised Keynesian model of growth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 173-191.
    8. Jane Humphries & Jacob Weisdorf, 2019. "Unreal Wages? Real Income and Economic Growth in England, 1260–1850," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(623), pages 2867-2887.
    9. Nuno Palma & André C. Silva, 2024. "Spending A Windfall," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 65(1), pages 283-313, February.
    10. Robert C. Allen, 2015. "The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: a restatement," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(1), pages 1-22, February.
    11. Rodolfo Signorino, 2003. "Book Reviews," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 339-370.
    12. Giorgio Giorgi, 2022. "Nonsingular M-matrices: a Tour in the Various Characterizations and in Some Related Classes," DEM Working Papers Series 206, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    13. Chu, Angus C. & Furukawa, Yuichi & Wang, Xilin, 2022. "Rent-seeking government and endogenous takeoff in a Schumpeterian economy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    14. Luis Daniel Torres-González, 2020. "The Characteristics of the Productive Structure Behind the Empirical Regularities in Production Prices Curves," Working Papers 2016, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    15. A. Rainer & R. Strohmaier, 2014. "Modeling the diffusion of general purpose technologies in an evolutionary multi-sector framework," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 425-444, August.
    16. Heinz D. Kurz, 2011. "The Contributions of Two Eminent Japanese Scholars to the Development of Economic Theory: Michio Morishima and Takashi Negishi," Chapters, in: Heinz D. Kurz & Tamotsu Nishizawa & Keith Tribe (ed.), The Dissemination of Economic Ideas, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Roger E. Backhouse, 2013. "Understanding Mark Blaug's attitude towards Sraffian economics," Chapters, in: Marcel Boumans & Matthias Klaes (ed.), Mark Blaug: Rebel with Many Causes, chapter 11, pages 146-158, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    18. Luca Timponelli, 2021. "From Pareto to Bridgman: The Operational Turn of Samuelson, Sraffa and Leontief," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 55(1), pages 303-328, June.
    19. Giovanni Scarano, 2013. "Capital accumulation and technical conditions along sustainable growth paths," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0182, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    20. Ken Tabata, 2013. "The Expansion of the Commercial Sector and the Child Quantity-Quality Transition in a Malthusian World," Discussion Paper Series 105, School of Economics, Kwansei Gakuin University, revised May 2013.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    technical change; income distribution; profit rate;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes
    • D33 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Factor Income Distribution
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:kch:wpaper:sdes-2019-13. 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: Sachiko Minami (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/smkocjp.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.