Values, prices of production and market prices: some more evidence from the Greek economy

This paper extends the empirical investigation of the relationbetween labour values and different price forms in the caseof the Greek economy. Subjecting the labour theory of valueto empirical tests with data from various countries helps inthe derivation of general conclusions regarding its empiricalvalidity and practical usefulness. Our results on the closenessof values and prices as measured by their absolute deviationand correlation, the shape of the wage–profit curves,the predictive power of labour values over market prices comparedwith other ‘value bases’, and the comparison offundamental Marxian categories when estimated in value and priceterms provide further support for the empirical strength ofthe labour theory of value.     

The Greek economic crisis: causes and alternative policies

The Greek economic crisis is primarily structural and the result of an international economic impasse that developed in 2007, with devastating implications for the struggling peripheral economies of Europe. This article suggests that falling profitability led to the stagnation of profits, which in turn discouraged new investment, decreased production and increased unemployment. The resulting recessionary economic environment, in conjunction with the mounting public debt and the austerity policies imposed on the Greek economy by the so-called ‘troika’ of creditors in 2010, has decimated the Greek economy even further, causing one of the worst economic crises since the Second World War. The article also provides some broad guidelines for an alternative economic policy.     

Alternative Theories of Competition: evidence from Greek manufacturing

The objective of this paper is to evaluate empirically the relevance of the neoclassical, post-Keynesian, and classical theories of competition in the light of the available empirical evidence from Greek large-scale manufacturing industries. The econometric analysis shows that the classical and post-Keynesian models provide a fairly good account of profit differentials, whereas the neoclassical performed the worst of the three. Between the classical and post-Keynesian models, we find that the classical is more consistent with the phenomena that it is designed to explain. Finally, a hybrid model combining variables from the three alternative theories displays the highest explanatory power.     

A NEW METHOD FOR THE ESTIMATION OF CAPACITY UTILIZATION: THEORY AND EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM 14 EU COUNTRIES

In this paper, we develop a new and at the same time simple method of obtaining a measure of the rate of capacity utilization (CU) which makes use of the structural vector autoregression (SVAR) system of equation estimating technique with long‐run restrictions. The measure of CU that we derive for each of 14 EU countries replicates to a great extent the European Commission's Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs (ECFIN) measure. On closer examination we find that the in‐sample explanatory content with respect to the inflation rate of the SVAR measure exceeds more often than not that of the ECFIN's measure; however, the out‐of‐sample forecasting performance of the two models is approximately equivalent.     

ON BRÓDY'S CONJECTURE: THEORY,FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT INSTABILITY OF THE US ECONOMY

Bródy's conjecture regarding the instability of economies is submitted to an empirical test using input–output flow tables of varying size for the US economy, for the benchmark years 1997 and 2002, as well as for the period 1998–2011. The results obtained using input–output tables of various dimensions lend support to the view of increasing instability (in the sense of Bródy) of the US economy over the period considered. Furthermore, our analysis shows that only a few vertically integrated industries are enough to shape the behaviour of the entire economy in the case of a disturbance. These results may usefully be contrasted with those derived in a parallel literature on aggregate fluctuations from microeconomic ‘idiosyncratic’ shocks.     

Union responses to the rise of precarious youth employment in Greece

The ways unions have responded so far to the emergence of precarious employment among young people in Greece are critically analysed in this article. The analysis considers that traditional forms of regulation and union representation are not effective in protecting young workers from the risk of vulnerability at work. It further makes the case for a radical strategic reorientation of the Greek trade unions placing greater emphasis on organising and attracting young precarious workers through more appropriate representation structures and engagement strategies at the workplace level.     

Decomposing the Changes in Production Prices into "Capital-Intensity" and "Price" Effects: Theory and Evidence from the Chinese Economy

This paper deals with the changes in prices of production inducedby variations in income distribution on the basis of a linearmodel of production with circulating capital and homogeneouslabour. It is shown that the total effect of income distributionon prices can be decomposed into a "capital-intensity" and a"price" effect and that, in actual economies, the former isexpected to dominate the latter. In order to obtain a concreteidea of the actual trajectories of the price movements and toquantify the relative strength of the two effects, we use input–outputdata of the Chinese economy.     

The rise and fall of monopolistic competition revolution

The widespread idea among economists is that monopolistic or imperfect competition is a set of realistic models that were invented in the 1930s and their purpose was to fill the gap between the polar and, at the same time, hypothetical models of perfect competition and pure monopoly. The main argument of this paper is that the monopolistic competition revolution set in motion a reaction—partly driven by methodological considerations, partly ideological—that ultimately led to the restoration of perfect competition, as the benchmark for evaluating market outcomes. In the end, monopolistic competition eclipsed, and perfect competition from the fridges of economic analysis that was up until the 1920s was placed to the very core of microeconomic model-building.