The ‘new golden age of accumulation’, the new depression and the greek economy

Tsoulfidis, Lefteris (2013): The ‘new golden age of accumulation’, the new depression and the greek economy. Published in: Social Cohesion and Development , Vol. 8, No. 1 (1 June 2013): pp. 5-23.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to delve into the deeper causes of the current crisis and its detailed manifestation in the case of the Greek economy. The major argument of the paper is that the root cause of the crisis is fundamentally identified in the declining profitability which past a point leads to a stagnant mass of real net profits thereby discouraging investment spending and leading to rising unemployment. In the case of the Greek economy, this crisis of profitability has been aggravated by the contraction of its major productive activities, that is, manufacturing and agriculture. The contraction of these activities not only worsened the crisis but furthermore paved the way for the development of different forms of its expression; that is, mounting debt and unprecedented high rates of unemployment bringing the whole society into a stalemate.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: falling rate of profit, unproductive activities, non-tradables, crisis, debt, Greek economy
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A10 - General; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B1 - History of Economic Thought through 1925 > B14 - Socialist ; Marxist; B - History of Economic Thought, Methodology, and Heterodox Approaches > B2 - History of Economic Thought since 1925 > B24 - Socialist ; Marxist ; Sraffian; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E1 - General Aggregative Models > E11 - Marxian ; Sraffian ; Kaleckian; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O5 - Economywide Country Studies > O52 - Europe

References

Abel, A., Bernanke, B. and Croushore, D. (2011). Macroeconomics. New York: Pearson.

Alexiou, C. and Tsaliki, P. (2009). “Unemployment Revisited: Empirical Evidence from Twenty OECD Countries”. Contributions to Political Economy, 28: 23-34.

Basu, D. and Vasudevan, R. (2013). “Technology,Distribution and the Rate of Profit in the U.S. Economy: Understanding the Current Crisis”. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 37(1): 57-89.

Blanchard, O., (2007). “Adjustment within the Euro: the Difficult Case of Portugal”. Portuguese Economic Journal 6(1): 1-21.

Bronfrenbrener, M. (1969). Is the Business Cycle Obsolete? New York: New York University Press.

Katsinos, A. and Mariolis, Th. (2012). “Switch to Devalued Drachma and Cost-Push Inflation: A Simple Input-Output Approach to the Greek Case”. Modern Economy, 3 (2): 164-170.

Katrakilidis, C. and Tsaliki, P. (2008). “Competing Theories of Unemployment and Economic Policies: Evidence from the US, Swedish and German Economies”. The Indian Economic Journal, 56(3): 90-108.

Katrakilidis, C., Tsaliki, P. and Tsiakis, Th. (2013). “The Greek Economy in a Kaldorian Developmental Framework”. Acta Oeconomica, 63 (1): 61–75.

Mariolis, Th. (2010). Essays in the Logical History of Political Economy (in Greek). Athens: Matura.

McCombie, J. and Thirlwall, A. (1994). Economic Growth and the Balance of Payments Constraint. London: Macmillan.

Paitaridis, D. and Tsoulfidis, L. (2012). “The Growth of Unproductive Activities, the Rate of Profit, and the Phase-Change of the US Economy”. Review of Radical Political Economics, 44: 213-33.

Papageorgiou, A. and Tsoulfidis, L. (2006) “Kondratiev, Marx and the Long Cycle”. Indian Development Review, June 2006. Available: http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/31355.html.

Poterba, J. (1997). “The Rate of Return to Corporate Capital and Factor and Shares: New Estimates Using Revised National Income Accounts Capital Stock Data”. Working Paper No 6263. Cambridge MA: NBER.

Sakellaropoulos, Th. (2004). “State and Economy in Greece, 1922-1990” in Sakellaropoulos, Th. (ed.) Economy and Politics in Modern Greece (vols. I and II). Athens:Dionikos.

Shaikh, A. (1992). The Falling Rate of Profit as the Cause of Long Waves: Theory and Empirical Evidence. New findings in Long-wave Research, ed. A. Kleinkenecht, E. Mandel and I. Wallerstein. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Shaikh, A., and Tonak, A. (1994). Measuring the Wealth of Nations: The Political Economy of National Accounts. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Tsaliki, P. and Tsoulfidis, L. (2013). Δοκίμια Πολιτικής Οικονομίας (Essays in Political Economy. Thessaloniki: Tziolas Editions.

Tsoulfidis, L. (2001). “Rethinking Long Cycles: Are the 1990s the Onset of a New Phase of Capital Accumulation?” In Georgakopoulos, Th., Paraskevopoulos, C. and Smithin, J. (eds.) Globalization and Economic Growth. A Critical Evaluation. Toronto: Athenian Policy Forum Press. Available: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/39739/1/MPRA_paper_39739.pdf

Tsoulfidis, L. (2010). Competing Schools of Economic Thought. Heidelberg: Springer.

Tsoulfidis, L. (2011). “Economic Theory in Historical Perspective”. Journal of Economic Analysis, 2: 32-45.

Tsoulfidis, L. (2013). “Public Debt and J.S. Mill’s Conjecture: A Note”. Journal of the History of Economic Thought and Policy, (forthcoming 2013)

Weber, S. (1997). “The End of Business Cycle?” Foreign Affairs, 76: 65–82.

Zarnowitz, V. (2000). “The Old and the New in US Economic Expansion of the 1990s”. Working Paper No 7721. Cambridge MA: NBER.