In this paper, I investigate the phenomenon of long waves of capitalist development from two perspectives. First, I look for evidence of long waves of economic growth taking the dates for turning points of long waves from the historical literature (Mandel, 1995). Using historical data for 20...

Karl Marx's magnum opus, Das Kapital, presents an analysis of the long run dynamics of a mature capitalist economy. The analysis is conducted at two primary levels of abstraction - "capital in general" (where competition between individual capitals is abstracted from) and "many capitals" (where...

This paper uses aggregate-level data as well as case-studies to trace the evolution of some key structural features of the Indian economy, relating both to the agricultural and the informal industrial sector. These aggregate trends are used to infer: (a) the dominant relations of production...

This paper uses aggregate-level data, as well as case-studies, to trace out the evolution of some key structural features of the Indian economy, relating both to the agricultural and the informal industrial sector. These aggregate trends are used to infer: (a) the dominant relations of...

An economic crisis in capitalism is a deep and prolonged interruption of the economy-wide circuit of capital. Crises emerge from within the logic of capitalism's operation, and are manifestations of the inherently contradictory process of capital accumulation. The Marxist tradition...

Kalyal Sanayal's work on postcolonial capitalism has been influential in many strands of critical social theory. In this brief note, I investigate three key components of his argument and find them wanting. In particular, I show that the evolution of land ownership in India does not support the...

The law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit has been at the center of theoretical and empirical debates within Marxian political economy ever since the publication of Volume III of Capital. An important limitation of this literature is the absence of a comprehensive econometric analysis...

This paper offers a synoptic account of the state of the debate within Marxist scholars regarding the current structural crisis of capitalism, identifies two broad streams within the literature dealing, in turn, with aggregate demand and profitability problems, and proceeds to concentrate on an...

This paper presents some estimates of the stock of the reserve army of labour, and flows into and out of the reserve army of labour for the postwar U.S. economy. Estimates of stocks are presented for the period 1948 - 2011 at a monthly frequency; 6 month moving average estimates of flows into...

Building on Marx's insights in Chapter 25, Volume I of Capital, an augmented version of the cyclical profit squeeze (CPS) theory offers a plausible explanation of macroeconomic fluctuations under capitalism. The pattern of dynamic interactions that emerges from a 3-variable (profit share,...