Will the MEGA2 edition be a watershed in interpreting Marx?

Abstract

The MEGA² edition is a watershed in interpreting important aspects of Marx’s oeuvre, but not all of them. It provides hints as to why Marx failed to complete his magnum opus, Capital, and informs about his doubts regarding the “law of motion” of capitalism centred on the “law of the falling tendency of the rate of profit” he was keen to establish.     

Profits and Fractal Properties: Notes on Marx,Countertendencies and Simulation Models

There are new reasons for revisiting Marx’s elaboration on the rate of profit because contemporary debates provide findings from the MEGA Project, long-term data on the rate of profit, and tools for dealing with complexity and non-equilibrium systems. This article proposes that the interplay between the tendency and the countertendencies of the rate of profit to fall can be translated into a simple system of equations, one based on each chapter of Section Three of Capital—as if Marx sought to mathematically formalise his insights. This article reviews previous debates, presents data and runs a simulation model, showing that the rate of profit behaves as fractals.     

Income Distribution,Econophysics and Piketty

Piketty, Atkinson and Saez have put the analysis of income distribution back on center stage. The distinction between property income and labor income plays a central role in this framework. Property income derives from the rate of return on stocks of income-earning wealth and is more unequally distributed than labor income. Piketty argues that, because the rate of return (r) is generally greater than the rate of growth of the economy (g), property income tends to grow more rapidly than labor income, so that rising income inequality is an intrinsic tendency of capitalism despite interruptions due to world wars and great depressions. This article argues the exact opposite. The rise of unions and the welfare state were the fruits of long-term historical gains made by labor, and the postwar constraints on real and financial capital arose in sensible reaction to the Great Depression. The ‘neoliberal’ era beginning in the 1980s significantly rolled back all of these. The article uses the econophysics two-class argument of Yakovenko to show that we can explain the empirical degree of inequality using two factors alone: the profit share and the degree of financialization of income. The rise of inequality in the neoliberal era then derives from a reduction in the wage share (rise in the profit share) in the face of assaults on labor and the welfare state, and a sharp increase in the financialization of incomes as financial controls are weakened. These are inherently socio-political outcomes, and what was lost can be regained. Hence, there is no inevitable return to Piketty’s ‘patrimonial capitalism’.     

Sraffa’s Constructive and Interpretive Work,and Marx

ABSTRACT

This article provides a summary account of Piero Sraffa’s constructive and interpretive work on the classical approach to the theory of value and distribution and its relationship with Marx’s contributions. It is shown that in the early phase of his constructive work Sraffa developed his equation systems by adopting a ‘physical real cost’ approach and a strictly objectivist point of view, and completely eschewed Marx’s labour-based approach and the related Marxian concepts. Only at a later stage did he explore systematically the relationship between his own modern re-formulation of the surplus approach to the theory of value and distribution and Marx’s contribution. He considered Marx’s most important analytical contribution to the further development of the surplus approach to consist of the re-integration of circular production relations, which allowed him to see the existence of a maximum rate of profits and its role in an analysis of accumulation and technical change.     

Property,Power, and Public Choice: An Inquiry into Law and Economics

This article briefly describes the evolution of the recent economic crisis based on different theories toward my own interpretation of it. The deregulation wave of the last decades has created new profit opportunities in various contexts — from labor flexibility to privatization and from financialization to globalization — so promoting a renewed process of capitalist accumulation after the stagflation of the 1970s. This has taken place at the cost of a wide-ranging increase in inequality and instability, thus bringing a cascade of crises, including the latest one of 2008.     

银行业竞争加剧还是抑制了企业金融化*

银行业竞争与企业金融化有多种关联机制，既可能加剧企业金融化，也可能抑制企业金融化。本文利用2007—2019年沪深两市A股非金融类上市公司的面板数据，考察了二者之间的关系。结果发现：（1）竞争性的银行业市场结构抑制了企业金融化。（2）银行业竞争不仅缓解了债务成本对企业利润的侵蚀，有助于缩小金融行业与实体企业之间的利润率差距，进而抑制企业利润追逐动机的金融化行为，而且通过引导信贷资源配置促进了企业创新，从而对实体企业金融投资产生挤出效应；此外，银行业竞争还通过促使银行积极发挥信息监督作用，抑制了企业内部人金融投机套利的机会主义行为。（3）银行业竞争对企业金融化的抑制效应在非国有企业、中小企业以及市场化水平较低地区的企业中更为显著。这些结果说明，提高银行业竞争水平有助于抑制企业金融化趋势，扭转经济“脱实向虚”的局面。     

考虑商业资本加入的利润平均化研究——基于转形问题各体系的理论拓展

商业资本加入后工商之间、部门之间的利润平均化问题,由于涉及纯粹流通费用补偿和价值转形这两方面难题,至今尚未得到解答.本文在对已有纯粹流通费用补偿范式分析评判和对转形问题的百年争论梳理评述的基础上,基于马克思考察商业资本时的理论抽象,构建了以商业部门为中介的社会产品转售体系和投入产出体系,在此基础上围绕遵循马克思原意且形...     

Corporate profit tax,firm entry with unemployment,and income inequality

In this paper, we provide a general equilibrium analysis of corporate profit tax on income distribution, unemployment, and wage inequality. With firm dynamics in industrial sector, we identify a new channel through which profit tax affects income and wage inequality: profit tax cut will widen not only the wage gap between skilled and unskilled labor, but also exacerbate the wage inequality of unskilled labor among different sectors. The welfare effect of profit tax cut depends on unemployment deepening (labor-distortion effect) and more manufacturing firms enter the market (business-creation effect), eroding the market share of incumbent firms (business-stealing effect).     

Financialization,Shareholder Orientation and the Cash Holdings of US Corporations

Growth in the cash holdings of US nonfinancial corporations (NFCs) has received considerable attention in recent years. These cash holdings constitute a primary component of the growth in firm-level financial asset holdings often highlighted in analyses of the ‘financialization’ of NFCs. In this article, I use a panel of US corporations to empirically analyze two links between corporate cash holdings and the literature on financialization. First, I find a small but positive relationship between cash holdings and shareholder value ideology among large corporations. I capture the growing entrenchment of shareholder ideology using average industry-level stock repurchases, to proxy for industry-level norms encouraging managers to target stock price-based indicators of firm performance. Second, I find a positive relationship between a firm's cash holdings and a measure of the differential it earns between interest income and expense. Given that cash is classified with short-term marketable (and, therefore, interest-bearing) securities on firm balance sheets, this result lends empirical support to the hypothesis that traditionally nonfinancial firms are increasingly engaged in borrowing and lending for profit.     

Quality-oriented growth: a new trend for Chinese firms

ABSTRACT

Based on data from the China Employer-Employee Survey (CEES), this study analyses the actual effect of quality-driven growth on firms’ performances in the economic transition of recent years. The results show positive and significant effects between the firms’ performance and quality-oriented growth, which is defined as a strategy that supports the spirit of greater entrepreneurial innovation, the advancement of input quality, and corporate governance improvement. Using a quality-driven growth mode, firms can effectively relieve the adverse effect of downward macroeconomic growth pressure on performance. This study proposes that China’s macroeconomic policy should shift from demand-oriented management to supply-oriented management, with a particular focus on quality development strategy. Moreover, firms should establish a quality-driven development strategy, facilitating a spirit of entrepreneurial innovation, advancing input quality, and improving corporate governance. This strategy will increase the firm’s performance, and effectively relieve the macroeconomic downward pressure.

Abbreviations: CEES: China Employer-Employee Survey, TFP: Total factor productivity     

Investor Protections and Concentrated Ownership: Assessing Corporate Control Mechanisms in the Netherlands

Abstract. The Berle–Means problem – information and incentive asymmetries disrupting relations between knowledgeable managers and remote investors – has remained a durable issue engaging researchers since the 1930s. However, the Berle–Means paradigm – widely dispersed, helpless investors facing strong, entrenched managers – is under stress in the wake of the cross‐country evidence presented by La Porta, Lopez‐de‐Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny, and their legal approach to corporate control. This paper continues to investigate the roles of investor protections and concentrated ownership by examining firm behaviour in the Netherlands. Our within‐country analysis generates two key results. First, the role of investor protections emphasized in the legal approach is not sustained. Rather, firm performance is enhanced when the firm is freed of equity market constraints. Second, ownership concentration does not have a discernible impact on firm performance, which may reflect large shareholders' dual role in lowering the costs of managerial agency problems but raising the agency costs of expropriation.     

Does shareholder primacy lead to a decline in managerial accountability?

Shareholder primacy is increasingly considered to be the mosteffective way to foster managerial (corporate) accountability.Contrary to this now standard argument, we consider that shareholderprimacy, rather than gatekeeper failure, is directly responsiblefor the multiplication of accounting irregularities and thedramatic increase in executive compensations. To defend thisthesis, we propose a new reading of Berle and Means (1932),Galbraith (1973) and Alchian and Demsetz (1972), stressing thelogical failure of a control of the business firm provided forby stock markets: the implementation of shareholder primacyimplies a partial disconnection between access to internal knowledgeand empowerment. In turn, this disconnection favours deceptivebehaviours on the part of corporate insiders. Empirical evidencemostly based on Enron-era financial scandals illustrates ourargument.     

Marx,Sraffa, and Surplus: Observations Prompted by Garegnani (2018)

ABSTRACT

In a posthumously published article, Pierangelo Garegnani (2018. ‘On the Labour Theory of Value in Marx and in the Marxist Tradition.’) depicts Marx’s project in Capital as that of ‘developing systematically the theory of Ricardo and [the] implications of social conflict’ implied by Ricardo’s ‘surplus approach to value and distribution’. This paper argues to the contrary that Marx’s theory of surplus value and exploitation differs from (neo-)Ricardian surplus theory in fundamental ways, and modifies Garegnani’s simple Sraffian model to illustrate the distinctive implications of Marx’s theory.     

会计准则变迁、公司治理对盈余管理的影响分析——基于结构方程模型的实证研究

本文应用结构方程模型分析了2006年新会计准则实施前后会计准则变迁和公司治理对盈余管理的共同作用。结果表明:会计准则的应用仅改变了上市公司盈余管理的具体方法如从固定资产减值准备转回改为构造债务重组收入,却无法从总体上约束这些企业的盈余管理行为。且新会计准则实行后的2007-2009会计年度,上市公司的盈余质量有降低趋势,但对亏损公司调减利润的行为有改进。     

Marx and Sraffa: A Comment on Gehrke and Kurz

This comment focuses on the assertion by Gehrke and Kurz (2018) that the origin of the equations which formed the backbone of Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities is not related in any way to Marx, and particularly Marx’s reproduction schemes, as argued by the late Giorgio Gilibert and myself. This comment argues that the 2018 article by Gehrke and Kurz makes significant—but unacknowledged—retreats from positions previously presented by the authors, and that the relevance of Marx and his reproduction schemes for the origin of Sraffa’s (1960) work for Production of Commodities is beyond reasonable doubt.     

Corporate governance and efficiency in banking: evidence from emerging economies

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the impact of corporate governance on bank efficiency across a sample of 139 commercial banks from 17 countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the period 2005–2012. Data on governance characteristics are hand-collected from banks’ reports. The empirical findings indicate that implementing rigorous corporate governance structures is associated with higher costs for banks and a lower level of efficiency. However, during the crisis, a tight governance mechanism significantly increases banks’ cost and technical efficiencies. We also show that prudent risk management is associated with both higher cost and technical efficiency for more capitalized banks, while rigid supervisory boards are linked with greater technical efficiency for more capitalized banks.     

Devaluation and Marx's Law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit

Marx's law of the tendential fall in the rate of profit predicts that the rate of profit will decline over the long term as the forces of production develop, and move cyclically in a way that explains crises and economic recoveries. This interpretation is substantiated with textual evidence, and with a method for measuring the dynamic of devaluation and revaluation which Marx uses to explain the profit rate cycle. This method is shown to be consistent with temporalism, meaning it avoids the transformation problem created by dual system interpretations, and the problem of the Okishio Theorem created by simultaneist interpretations. The article also includes a temporalist way to estimate the Monetary Expression of Labour Time, and empirical results for the effect of devaluation on the stock of fixed assets in the United States since 1930.     

Marx and Ricardo on machinery: a critical note

This article critically discusses the important and relevant—not to mention controversial— views of Ricardo and Marx on the impact of machinery on labor productivity, the organization of production and the wages and employment prospects of the working class during the capitalism of their day. First, the article turns to Ricardo’s assessment of the introduction of machinery and its likely effects on the laborer and the rate of profit and accumulation—one which went through a substantial revision (and reversal) between the first and third editions of his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Then, we discuss Marx’s own critical analysis of the historical development of machinery and its impact on the labor process, the so-called “compensation principle,” and how the rising organic composition of capital ostensibly generates a “redundant or surplus-population” during the course of capitalist development. We highlight Marx’s intellectual debt to Ricardo, John Barton (and George Ramsay) insofar as his theory of technological unemployment is concerned. Lastly, the article summarizes the views of Ricardo and Marx and offers some concluding remarks.     

价值创造还是价值攫取:美国企业股东治理模式的困境与启示

美国现行企业治理模式失灵是其经济难以真正复苏的主要原因之一。外部大股东介入公司运营非但没有带来理想中的效率提升,反而干扰了管理层的正常决策,加重了对劳动者的盘剥。金融资本家大肆攫取公司资源,严重损害了企业的创新能力。股东治理模式误解了股东与经理人的经济关系,高估了股东投资对于企业经营的重要性,错把股东视为唯一的风险投资者与关键的创新推动者。此外在分析时所采用的同质化抽象处理也不利于普通股东。股东至上的观念本质上属于资本主义生产方式的必然产物,倾向于大股东的利润分配方案根植于以交换为核心的新古典经济学,不能据此来指导企业经营。我国下阶段的公司改革需要以适合我国国情的、专注于提升企业生产创新能力的新型公司治理理论为指导。     

Social Security Reform and Corporate Governance

Abstract

This paper considers implementation issues arising from potential reforms to the United States Social Security system. Many reform proposals involve individually invested accounts, but the corporate governance implications of such accounts have not been fully explored. Existing reform plans will result in a large fraction of votes being concentrated at one private fund manager. The implications for corporate governance and debt management under alternative fund management strategies are evaluated. The use of futures to construct synthetic investments could alleviate corporate governance and debt management problems.