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This chapter examines explanations for the slowdown of capital accumulation since 1980. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics data on trends on productivity and capital spending, we find that slowing productivity growth accounts for slower capital accumulation. Other explanations for the downturn, such as outsourcing, the “post-industrial” economy, and financialization, do not reflect macroeconomic trends. However, we argue that shareholder value ideology affected decisions about how to balance productivity growth and inputs such as capital and labor. We discuss the consequences of slowing accumulation on American economic hegemony.

This article tries to introduce product innovation into Marxist theory of capital accumulation. Although in Grundrisse Marx has already foreseen the importance of product innovation in overcoming the limits to capital originated from the production of relative surplus value, mainstream Marxist theories of capital accumulation have up till now made few endeavours to envisage this problem. It is argued in this chapter that to introduce product innovation into Marxist theory of accumulation depends on a reconstruction of the fundamental contradictions in capital accumulation, that is the contradiction between production of surplus value and realisation of surplus value, combined with the contradiction between exchange value and use value as the driving force in its development. The production of relative surplus value based on process innovation and consequent productivity enhancement, given any specific use value, will lead to overproduction, that is the intensification of those fundamental contradictions in accumulation, which nevertheless could be mitigated by introducing product innovation. In evaluating critically the contribution by Mandel in his long waves theory, we further argue, following the lead of neo-Schumpeterians, that there is a possibility for radical product innovations to be at least semi-endogenously induced in capital accumulation, and thus paving the way for a long boom of capitalism.

The goal of this study is to investigate the nexus among TFP (total factor productivity), IT (information technology) capital accumulation, skills and key plant variables of 34 Indian industries for the period of 2009–2015.

Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) data series are extracted and formulated using Microsoft SQL server. The authors employ Wooldridge (2009) technique to estimate productivity. To investigate the linkages among productivity, IT, skills and key plant variables, the authors estimate specifications using system generalized method of moments (sys-GMM). Advanced estimation techniques such as Heckman two-step process, probit equations, inverse Mills ratio and panel cointegration are applied to overcome problems of nonstationarity, omitted variables, endogeneity and reverse causality.

The results indicate that the level of IT capital influences the TFP of Indian industries, so does the level of skilled workers. The outcome suggests that intermediate capital goods, location and ownership type enable the strength of IT capital and that in turn boosts productivity. The authors fail to find any impact of regional factors and contractual labor on IT capital and productivity. While medium-level gender diversity is statistically significant to influence productivity, however, no complementarities exist between gender diversity and IT capital accumulation. The results also indicate that IT demand of Indian industries is sensitive to availability of skilled workforce, fuel and electricity and access to short-term funding.

To the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the nexus among TFP, IT capital accumulation, skills and organizational factors using ASI unit level data. Besides this, the paper offers two more novelties. First, it uses Wooldridge (2009) technique to estimate productivity, which is used by a handful of studies in the context of India. Second, the study identifies factors that impact productivity growth, IT demand and its adoption in Indian industries and thus contributes to growth and development literature.

The author studies the role of safe assets accumulation in shaping the pattern of international capital flows.

The author combines a theoretical model and the empirical analysis. The model is a two-country open economy, while the evidence is based on a fixed-effect regression on a panel of 19 countries of the eurozone.

In an open two-country economy, a positive productivity shock raises both mean and variance of wealth accumulation rate, then, leading to a greater holding of safe assets for risk-sharing motivation. Upon financial integration, the shock can induce the outflows of net total capital. The evidence of 19 eurozone countries confirms the theory and also uncovers that the safe assets (bonds) are the dominant driver of cross-border capital flows within the eurozone.

The model can be extended to account for the impact of safe assets on the economic growth, then, analyzes the role of safe assets within financial globalization. Taking into account the impact of safe assets on the open-economy economic growth can be the next step to approach the issue.

The paper also provides important policy implication. Since a higher productivity level can raise the outflows of net total capital through the accumulation of foreign safe assets, an economy needs to increase its supply of safe asset along with upgrading its domestic productivity level. This combination is important for the long-run capital accumulation and economic growth of an economy with an increasing path of the productivity level.

The paper seeks a balance between theory and evidence on international capital flows. Moreover, the paper bridges the gap between the literature on international capital flows and the literature on safe assets. And the paper also focuses on the economies of the eurozone.

This article provides a detailed investigation of how Lewis revisited classical and Marxian concepts such as productive/unproductive labor, economic surplus, subsistence wages, reserve army, and capital accumulation in his investigation of economic development. The Lewis 1954 development model is compared to other models advanced at the time by Harrod, Domar, Swan, Kaldor, Solow, von Neumann, Nurkse, Rosenstein-Rodan, Myint, and others. Lewis applied the notion of economic duality to open and closed economies.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative assessment of the factors contributing to India's growth acceleration since 1970, based on the neoclassical growth model.

A feature of neoclassical growth models is that capital accumulation is induced by both productivity growth and increases in investment rates. The paper uses a growth decomposition method based on that of Robertson. The method reconstructs India's actual growth path exactly, then decomposes the growth using counterfactual simulations, holding investment rates constant and productivity growth constant. The role of human capital is also discussed.

An increase in the productivity growth rate from 1970 accounts for 68per cent of India's post 1970s growth and the rise in the investment rate accounts for 30 per cent. Hence an upward trend in productivity growth has been more than twice as important as the doubling of the investment rate. A similar conclusion applies for the post 2000 era, where a rise in investment from 25 per cent to 37 per cent of GDP, only adds about 0.7 percentage points of growth to the 4.5 per cent annual growth rate over this period.

The paper provides quantitative estimates of the role of investment and productivity to India's growth based on the neoclassical growth model. It thus improves upon existing growth accounting studies by allowing for the induced effect of productivity growth on capital accumulation. It also improves upon existing development accounting techniques that rely on steady state restrictions, and which would therefore be inappropriate for evaluating India's recent transitional growth.

There exist long-term fluctuations in the process of capital accumulation. The economic long wave is an essential part of research into non-mainstream western economics. After the Second World War, the capitalist world experienced the fourth long wave of expansion and then entered into a downward phase of the long wave in the 1970s. Regarding to whether a new long wave of expansion took place in the 1980s, left-wing scholars hold different viewpoints. The purpose of this paper is to focus on this issue.

First, based on the review of the long wave history, this paper discusses three kinds of long wave theories with significant influence and puts forward the theoretical framework of analyzing the long wave of capitalist economy. Next, under the guidance of this theoretical framework and in combination with the actual development and evolution of the capitalist economy, the issue of whether the fifth long wave of the capitalist economy began to emerge in the 1980s is discussed deeply.

This paper argues that, from the early 1980s to 2007, the US-dominated developed countries experienced a new long wave of expansion driven by the information technology revolution, the adjustment of the neoliberalism system and the economic globalization. However, the financial-economic crisis of 2008–2009 led to a new phase of long wave downswing.

This paper does not agree with the single-factor analysis of the intrinsic formation mechanism of economic long wave and sticks to the multi-factor analysis centering on the fluctuation of accumulation rate. It is pointed out that the evolution of the long wave of capitalist economy depends on the combined influence of technology, institutions and market. The study of the long wave of the economy will help us to correctly understand the historical stage and characteristics of the current world capitalist economy in the long-term fluctuations, so that we can make an appropriate and positive response.

Henryk Grossman was the first person to systematically explore Marx’s explanation of capitalist crises in terms of the tendency for the rate of profit to fall and to place it in the context of the distinction between use and exchange value. His “The Law of Accumulation and Breakdown of the Capitalist System” remains an important reference point in the Marxist literature on economic crises. That literature has been plagued by distortions of Grossman’s position which derive from early hostile reviews of his book. These accused Grossman of a mechanical approach to the end of capitalism and of neglecting factors which boost profit rates. Grossman, in fact, contributed a complementary economic element to the recovery of Marxism undertaken by Lenin (particularly in the area of Marxist politics) and Lukács (in philosophy). In both published and unpublished work, Grossman also dealt with and even anticipated criticisms of his methodology and treatment of countertendencies to the tendency for the rate of profit to fall. Far from being mechanical, his economic analysis can still assist the struggle for working class self-emancipation.

This chapter is a radical critique of the neoclassical growth theory, justifying ways out of mainstream economics. It has three parts. The first one analyzes growth theories from the Classical representation to the endogenous growth models. The second part demonstrates that the “new growth theory” is not a break with Solow's formalization. To prove it, we build an original Solowian endogenous growth model. Then, this neoclassical macrodynamic framework is technically, deeply critized in a third part. We show that both exogenous and endogenous neoclassical models prove to be incapable to explain growth in the long period. We concentrate on the ambiguities surrounding the hypothesis of single agent, as well as on the role of the state, in particular when it is considered as a “planner” by the neoclassicals. Endogenous growth models do not correspond to macrodynamization of the Walrasian general equilibrium, nor have solid microeconomic bases. We advocate in favor of rehabilitating state's intervention in social areas and of reactivating Marxist theoretical reflections regarding social planning and class analysis in the current time of structural crisis of the capitalist world system.