Profits and Rates of Return in OECD Countries

James H. Chan-Lee and Helen Sutch
Additional contact information
James H. Chan-Lee: OECD
Helen Sutch: OECD

No 20, OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing

Abstract: There is widespread concern, particularly in Europe, about the possibility of a secular decline in profits and rates of return. The purpose of this study is to assess whether there has been a decline and to quantify it as far as possible, taking measurement problems into account. It also considers summarily the significance of observed trends and the reasons for them. Profits are generally seen as an essential feature of market economies. When they are low, it is feared that enterprise and innovation will falter and the rate of investment decline, leading to sluggish growth in output and capacity. Low growth may also lead to low profits. The precise links between profits and economic performance are, however, theoretically complicated and difficult to establish empirically. This is because both economic and accounting definitions of profit cover heterogeneous phenomena and are calculated as a residual. Conceptual and measurement issues are important in assessing the evolution of ...

Date: 1985-05-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/468348310348 (text/html)

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:oec:ecoaaa:20-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in OECD Economics Department Working Papers from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().