Classical economists mainly Smith, Ricardo and J.S. Mill abhorred public debts because of their interference with capital accumulation. J.S. Mill in particular envisaged that a rising public debt leads to higher interest rates and falling real wages, a combination which may be consistent with a...

Abstract This paper begins with a critical presentation of Kondratiev’s (1926) seminal paper on the question of the existence as well as his theoretical explanation of long cyclical fluctuations of the level of economic activity. Furthermore we argue that a coherent explanation of long-run...

Abstract In this article we discuss the salient features of the classical and neoclassical theories of competition and we test their fundamental propositions using data from Greek manufacturing industries. The cross section data of 3-digit (total 91) industries of the three (pooled together)...

This paper deals with the long cycles that characterize the evolution of capitalist economies. It begins with a discussion of epochs of expansion and contraction in the level of economic activity and makes an effort to move towards a meaningful periodization of economic history. The claim that...

The evolution of the rate of profit reflects both changes in income distribution and technical conditions of production. The purpose of this paper is to present estimates of the rate of profit for the Greek economy using input-output data spanning the period 1988-1997 and, at the same time, to...

The purpose of this paper is twofold: on the one hand is to discuss Ricardo’s version of the labour theory of value; and on the other hand, is to analyse some crucial aspects of Ricardo’s theory of taxation as an extension and further elaboration of his theory of value. This discussion is...

The question of the long-run prospects of profitability and its association with the stage of capital accumulation have occupied central importance in the history of economic thought. This paper focuses on Marx and Keynes and argues that Marx’s analysis, despite its incomplete nature, is...

This paper tests Bienenfeld’s polynomial approximation of production prices using data from ten symmetric input-output tables of five European economies. The empirical results show that the quadratic formula works extremely well and its accuracy is connected to the actual distribution of the...

Comments on a paper by B.Fine on the subject of Privatisation

This chapter starts with a discussion of the economic situation in the USA and UK in the 1920s and 1930s and argues that the fundamentals of these two economies in the 1920s were already in a bad shape. In fact, we show that in the US economy the fall in the rate of profit and the stagnation of...