The paradox of monetary profits has been a recurrent theme in macroeconomics since the problem was first formulated by Marx. Capitalists as a whole can at most get from workers, what they already paid out in wages. Marx did not solve this problem, and neither did Keynes, who had to face the...

The Keynesian multiplier effect is reinterpreted and several issues that may have misled assessments of the effect of fiscal spending are discussed. It is shown that even in the textbook Keynesian framework some transfer policy 'reduces' aggregate demand and that public works spending may...

We derive a theoretically consistent welfare measure that is to be interpreted as a "green" net national product (NNP). In our framework, environmental deterioration is modelled as an undesirable, but inherent by-product of economic activities consuming the resource base. A major advantage of...

We develop a framework for analyzing national income accounting using a revealed welfare approach that is sufficiently general to cover, e.g., both the standard discounted utilitarian and maximin criteria as special cases. We show that the basic welfare properties of comprehensive national...

We develop a framework for analyzing national income accounting using a revealed welfare approach that is sufficiently general to cover, e.g., both the standard discounted utilitarian and maximin criteria as special cases. We show that the basic welfare properties of comprehensive national...

We examine economic activity in a large virtual economy which was designed to allow decentralized barter as the sole exchange institution. We find that a small subset of goods emerges endogenously which act of media of exchange. Our analysis includes estimation of spot exchange rates between...

Although the aggregate capital share of U.S. firms has increased, the firm-level capital share of a typical U.S. firm has decreased. This divergence is due to mega-firms that now produce a larger output share without a proportionate increase in labor compensation. We develop a model in which...