Piketty and Marginal Productivity Theory

Fred Moseley

International Journal of Political Economy, 2015, vol. 44, issue 2, 105-120

Abstract: This paper focuses on Piketty’s explanation of the increased capital share of total income in major economies in recent decades presented in chapter 6 of his 2014 book. Piketty’s explanation is presented in terms of the theoretical framework of the marginal productivity theory of distribution. The first section of the paper critically reviews the key elements of marginal productivity theory: production function, marginal products, diminishing returns, and elasticity of substitution. The second section summarizes Piketty’s explanation of the increasing capital share in terms of marginal productivity theory; the third section critically evaluates Piketty’s explanation; and the fourth section briefly presents an alternative heterodox explanation of the increased capital share in recent decades.

Date: 2015
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08911916.2015.1060828 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mes:ijpoec:v:44:y:2015:i:2:p:105-120

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MIJP20

DOI: 10.1080/08911916.2015.1060828

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Political Economy from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().