Economic theory and ideology inMarx and modern economic analysis Giovanni A. Caravale,editor Edward Elgar, 1991, 512 pp.

The collection of essays edited by Giovanni Caravale has the explicit aim of letting the reader know the principal positions that have characterized the long-lasting debate in the themes of Marxian economics. In particular, the book is concerned with the contributions of those authors who recognize the relevance of Piero Sraffa's analysis for the interpretation of Marxian economic thought, showing that, even among these authors, opinions on the topic are deeply different. The book consists of two volumes: the first one, "Values, Prices and Exploitation," deals with the main theme of Marxian value theory, while the second, "The Future of Capitalism and the History of Thought," deals with discussion of the law of the falling rate of profit and of the role of Marx's theory in the history of economic thought.     

A Methodological Note on Long-Period Positions

This brief paper seeks to overcome a number of methodologicaldisagreements among economists who use the long-period methodof analysis. In particular, it attempts to clarify the key distinctionsbetween convergence and stability, convergence and gravitationand chronological and theoretical persistence. The conclusionis that the theoretical soundness of the long-period methoddepends on the convergence of actual magnitudes towards theirlong-period counterparts, an empirical issue to which theoreticalconsiderations of stability are irrelevant.     

Endogenous employment rate in the efficiency wage shirking approach

The aim of New Keynesian theorists is to obtain Keynesian results on the basis of maximizing behavior. Accordingly, the New Keynesian shirking models depict a world of fully rational maximizing agents where equilibrium unemployment is the main consequence of the payment of efficiency wages. The problem is that oversimplified nature of most shirking models has until now prevented a full investigation of the interdependence of unemployment, the effort supplied by workers and labor demand. This article shows that the existence of this interdependence weakens the whole approach. In particular, when the unemployment rate is considered a truly endogenous variable, the stability of the macroeconomic equilibrium is generally incompatible with the existence of unemployment ascribed to the fact that firms pay efficiency wages.