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The rate of profit as a random variable

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  • Julian Wells, Julian

Abstract

This thesis is a systematic attempt to investigate two conjectures about the distribution of company rates of profit: that it should be log-normal (Gibrat 1931), and that it should be gamma distributed (Farjoun and Machover 1983). A large set of company accounts data is analysed, and partial support found for Gibrat and for a generalised version of Farjoun and Machover. The analysis includes a demonstration of different empirical distributions for different profit rate measures, a demonstration of power law tails in all measures of the profit rate, and a demonstration of size effects (differences in tail weights) in financial ratios. Annual variation in the overall skewness and kurtosis of profit rate distributions is shown to be dominated by variation in the power law tails. L-moments, a recent innovation in robust methods to deal with extreme values, are used in conjunction with a size-weighted sampling scheme to identify possible models for distributions of the profit rate at the capital level. Farjoun and Machover derive their hypothesis from a particular conception of the process of capitalist competition. A rival conception, that of Glick (1985), is tested using company accounts data and shown to be vulnerable to criticism concerning the scope of its data set, the test statistic employed, and its choice of profit rate measure. More fundamentally, it is also dependent on doubtful premises about the within-industry distribution of profit rates, as L-moment analysis demonstrates.

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  • Julian Wells, Julian, 2007. "The rate of profit as a random variable," MPRA Paper 98235, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:98235
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    Cited by:

    1. Paulo L. dos Santos & Jangho Yang, 2019. "The persistent and informative distribution of returns on capital," Economics and Business Letters, Oviedo University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 156-165.
    2. Greenblatt, R.E., 2014. "A dual theory of price and value in a meso-scale economic model with stochastic profit rate," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 416(C), pages 518-531.
    3. Juan Pablo Mateo, 2017. "The profit rate and asset-price inflation in the Spanish economy," Working Papers 1721, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    4. Mateo Tomé, Juan Pablo & Nieto Fernández, Maximiliano Francisco, 2021. "Profit rates and assets-price inflation in the Spanish economy," Revista Galega de Economía, University of Santiago de Compostela. Faculty of Economics and Business., vol. 30(4), pages 1-21.
    5. Alain Alcouffe & Julian Wells, 2009. "Marx, maths, and MEGA 2," Post-Print hal-01571169, HAL.
    6. Freeman, Alan, 2016. "The Whole of the Storm: Money, debt and crisis in the current Long Depression," MPRA Paper 84394, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Wright, Ian, 2009. "Implicit Microfoundations for Macroeconomics," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-27.
    8. Greenblatt, R.E., 2013. "Rates of profit as correlated sums of random variables," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(20), pages 5006-5018.
    9. Williams, Michael A. & Baek, Grace & Park, Leslie Y. & Zhao, Wei, 2016. "Global evidence on the distribution of economic profit rates," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 458(C), pages 356-363.
    10. Adalmir Antonio Marquetti & Catari Vilela Chaves & Leonardo Costa Ribeiro & Eduardo da Motta e Albuquerque, 2021. "Rate of Profit in the United States and in China (2007–2014): A Look at Two Trajectories and Strategic Sectors," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 116-142, March.
    11. Emmanuel Jurczenko & Bertrand Maillet & Paul Merlin, 2008. "Efficient Frontier for Robust Higher-order Moment Portfolio Selection," Post-Print halshs-00336475, HAL.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    rate of profit; L-moments; Farjoun; Machover; Laws of Chaos; Marx; transformation problem;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • B51 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Socialist; Marxian; Sraffian
    • B59 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Current Heterodox Approaches - - - Other
    • M21 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Economics - - - Business Economics
    • Y40 - Miscellaneous Categories - - Dissertations - - - Dissertations

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