INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON PROFITABILITY AND ACCUMULATION

Has the rate of profit been falling in industrialised countries? What are the factors that are responsible for its increase over time and what factors account for its decline. The rate of profit is a key economic variable. It directly affects the rate of economic growth, both as a source of funds and as an inducement for new investment. It also bears on the distribution of income between wage earners and owners of capital.

This important volume of original essays undertakes a rigorous statistical analysis of profitability trends and factors that affect their movement. The results indicate that the profit rate in industrialized economies has been declining over the long term, but the trend is far from uniform, with profitability increasing during the 1980s. The authors also find that several factors have played key roles in causing changes in profitability. Amongst the most important are investment, technology change, movements in the real wage, turnover rates, the growth of unproductive labour, structural change in the economy, work effort, labour-capital relations and public policy.

International Perspectives on Profitability and Accumulation fills an important gap in the literature on this important economic and policy issue.