Labor Productivity and the Law of Decreasing Labor Content

Peter Flaschel, Reiner Franke and Roberto Veneziani
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Peter Flaschel, Reiner Franke and Roberto Veneziani: Bielefeld University, Kiel University, Queen Mary University of London
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Roberto Veneziani and Peter Flaschel

UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers from University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper analyzes labor productivity and the law of decreasing labor content (LDLC) originally formulated by Farjoun and Machover (1983). First, it is shown that the standard measures of labor productivity may be rather misleading, owing to their emphasis on monetary aggregates. Instead, the conventional classical-Marxian labor values provide the theoretically and empirically sound measures of labor productivity. The notion of labor content and the LDLC are therefore central in order to understand the dynamics of capitalist economies. Second, some rigorous theoretical relations between different forms of profit-driven technical change and productivity are derived in a general input-output framework with fixed capital, which provide deterministic foundations to the LDLC. Third, the main theoretical propositions are analyzed empirically based on a new dataset of the German economy. JEL Categories: B51, D57, O33, C67

Keywords: labor productivity; law of falling labor content; technical change; labor values; Input-Output analysis. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eff and nep-lab
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Journal Article: Labour productivity and the law of decreasing labour content (2013)
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