In the decomposition of the US macroeconomic pre-tax rate of profit as the product of profit share and capital productivity, this paper considers the role of capital productivity over the period 1964-2001. The primary finding is that prior to 1982 capital productivity fell because capital...

Specifying the labour theory of value in a way that distinguishes both productive from unproductive labour, and production workers from supervisory workers, this paper considers distributive shares in the US economy between 1964 and 2001. Trends in productive and unproductive labour are explored...

This paper examines the methodology of Shaikh and Tonak (Measuring the Wealth of Nations, 1994) underlying their calculation of estimates of productive labour in the US economy from 1964 to 2001. The focus is not on the results but on the methods that generate them. The paper finds that the...

The UK rate of profit rose considerably over the inter-war period and hence this period was one of significant recovery for capital, albeit with some volatility. Several decompositions of the profit rate are explored in pursuit of proximate determinants of the rising profit rate. A Marxian...