Capital theory

The principles that govern the financial markets and goods market are somewhat identical. Based on demand supply, constant exchanges take place in both the markets. In a way which we view and understand the goods market, the same approach is being used for understanding financial markets wherein the securities listed on secondary market are existing goods or existing supply and the issue of new securities in form of IPOs are new goods which shall increase the overall supply of financial goods in the secondary market. Now, changes in monetary policy of the Central bank can determine the supply of money which can determine the velocity or volume of money that revolves into financial markets and may impact the overall prices of existing financial goods and such phenomena can influence entry of new financial goods in the form of IPO'S. We try to study the impact of changes in monetary policy of the Central Bank on financial markets and how the economic outcome created by changes in monetary stance influences entry of new financial goods or issue of new securities (IPOS).

Beginning in the 1950s and lasting well into the 1970s, the Cambridge Capital Controversy (CCC) refers to the economic disputes on the role of capital goods in neoclassical economic theory. Specifically, the controversies explored three particular issues:

1. The value of capital goods in an industrial, capitalist, free-market economy;
2. Joan Robinson's critiques on the ability of equilibrium to analyze capital growth and accumulation processes; and
3. The concepts of reswitching and reverse capital deepening.

After a thorough introduction of the fundamental topics, this paper analyzes three distinct topics as case studies. The studies will attempt to establish a line of reasoning and introduce the main actors' perspectives (either neoclassical or Keynesian/post-Keynesian). Given recent argument developments surrounding the CCC, the paper will also update readers on the second "phase" of the debate between neo-Ricardian and neo-Walrasian economists. The paper's primary purpose is to extend the CCC's importance in classroom, graduate, and research environments due to its critical implications on neoclassical theory. Furthermore, the paper will base the CCC as a foundation for exploring the relationship of demand with the natural rate of economic growth.

Because of the considerable concentration on the relevance of education in society and, possibly, global development, it has become a thriving area of investigation and implementation that is gaining even more attention. Above all, scholars and practitioners must help to educate one another. This article review is intended to describe Hargreaves’s theory of school effectiveness and improvement focusing on 4 master concepts: outcomes (cognitive and moral) linked to curriculum (formal or hidden); leverage (innovation and evidence-based practice) linked to teaching (didactic and modeling), productive capacity (knowledge transfer and knowledge creation) connected to gaining knowledge (formal or informal), and social capital (trust and networks) linked to learning (formal or informal) (academic or moral). With this, concepts are meaningless unless they are properly implemented, or are closest to being put into effect.

Работа представляет собой исправленную версию ранее опубликованной статьи¹. Этот вариант распространяется без помощи каких-либо издательств и впервые публикуется на портале Academia.edu.¶

Русский мыслитель XIX века Никита Петрович Гиляров-Платонов оставил после себя собрание черновиков с экономическими заметками. В статье я постарался собрать его разрозненные идеи в цельные модели и определить место Гилярова-Платонова на общем дереве экономической мысли. Работа затрагивает вопросы теории цены, капитала и кредита, а также модели человека. Первая версия статьи заняла I место на XX Конкурсе имени В.Н. Вениаминова, в секции «Экономические исследования: точки противоречий и точки развития».¶

¹ Алексеев И.М. Об одной недооценённой, но весьма перспективной форме исследований: реконструкции по черновикам (на материалах Н. П. Гилярова-Платонова) // Вестник экономического научного общества студентов и аспирантов. Выпуск № 61. Санкт-Петербург : Издательство МБИ, 2022. 185 с.

Capital theory is one of the most controversial topics in
economics and an object of debate inside the Austrian School of
Economics. If Böhm-Bawerk’s capital theory, usually identified
as the Austrian Capital Theory, left many Austrian economists
unsatisfied, a clear definition of capital, consistent with
Mengerian subjectivism, is still to be seen inside the School.
Following Ludwig Lachmann’s application of hermeneutics to
economics, this paper attemps to define capital as the outcome of subjective mental processes, determined by individual
intentions and expectations, rather than by specific physical or
economic features. The paper does not aim to totally redefine
capital theory but, more specifically, to reach a definition for
capital, capital goods, and capital value; these definitions
attempt to complete the work initiated by Lachmann in the
hope of finding a certain consensus among scholars dissatisfied
with the present state of capital theory, which is dominated by
an objectivist post-Ricardian perspective. Indeed, when
defining capital Lachmann seems unable to remain consistent
with his own brilliant criticism of the Ricardian perspective. In
particular, by distinguishing between ‘potential’ and ‘actual’
capital goods and capital in general, I try to overcome this gap
and to define capital and capital goods in radically subjectivist
terms.

EXTRAIT : "Veblen offre du capitalisme financier, qu’il voit naître, la conception d’un régime économique fondé sur de nouvelles pratiques commerciales, financières et bancaires qui s’emparent de la production et nous éloigne du capitalisme de Ricardo et Marx. Quand la finance soumet l’industrie, il faut comprendre comment les représentations collectives aliénantes sont autant d’images agissantes sur la société. Veblen est un savant iconoclaste, un briseur de cette économie des images, secret de la nouvelle forme que prend le capitalisme au début du XXième siècle. Une forme qui, depuis lors, a connu bien des avatars déclinés à l’envi grâce aux multiples progrès techniques, mais une forme qui, pour l’essentiel, demeure un principe toujours organisateur du capitalisme. A cet égard, les dispositifs monétaires et financiers ne peuvent être compris sans l’empire que les vested interests exercent sur le système économique. Veblen soutient que le Système de la Réserve Fédérale est, par excellence, une émanation de ces intérêts établis, véritable machine à produire de l’illusion de façon à opérer des transferts de richesses au profit de la perpétuation d’un pouvoir de classe." La dernière version de ce texte a été publié dans un livre à téléchargement libre, c'est-à-dire https://www.ifporient.org/978-2-35159-720-0/
Il s'agit du support donné à une conférence à Beyrouth  en 2015 qui est enregistrée, voir https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3zmqik

El siguiente trabajo intenta definir y esclarecer el concepto real de " Capital " , basándose en la discusión y los aportes generados en la temprana escuela austríaca de economía. Posteriormente, se expresa la opinión que aporta el autor sobre la necesidad de introducir el elemento de subjetividad de la acción humana dentro de la teoría del capital.

The prevailing, and largely unacknowledged, uncertainty around
capital puts a question mark behind many proclamations regarding the ideology, theory, and praxis of the capitalist system. A clearer understanding of ‘what we talk about
when we talk about capital’ is a priority if we wish to distinguish useful theoretical positions from misguided pretenders. In this paper, I examine the theoretical common points of Thorstein Veblen and Cornelius Castoriadis as they contribute to the 'power theory of capital' being developed by political economists Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler.

Upon observing that there are psychic or mental configurations inherent to the capitalist system, the general thesis that capitalism is also a state of mind is accepted. This idea justifies not only the direct analysis of capitalism by students of the psyche, but also the elaborate theory of the capitalist mind foreshadowed in the theory of capitalism that Marx presents. By examining Marx’s theoretical elaborations concerning the psyche it becomes possible to distinguish two levels, one psychological, the other what we shall call metapsychological, to indicate that it goes beyond the psychological, overflows it, transcends it, constitutes it and explains it. That one can announce the existence of a metapsychology of capital, in which some of the principal defining aspects of Freud’s metapsychological domain are found, including the fact that it constitutes an unconscious conceived as a mental system and a logical localization in the psyche. This article will show how this metapsychological domain of the unconscious can serve to explain and frame, in Marx and Freud, the psychological sphere of consciousness, and through it, though indirectly, elucidate that which occurs at the metaphysical summits of religion and mythology.

In presenting Hermeneutics of Capital, the author fears that most modern economists are not prepared or even interested in the approach that has been taken in this book. Today, economists are more likely to search for “exact” theories functional relationships between often logically independent variables rather than to question the nature of their science and its main task.

This book argues that “economics is about human nature, human conduct and human institutions”, or what Mises called human action. The present book, however, is not an epistemological one. It is about capital theory. The attempt of Hermeneutics of Capital is to reconcile man and capital, which are often presented as competing elements in a conflictual world. What the author tries to do is even more than looking for a simple reconciliation; following Ludwig Lachmann’s application of hermeneutics to economics, the author tries to define capital as the outcome of subjective mental processes, determined by individual intentions and expectations and not by specific physical or economic features.

The author defines the theory as post-Austrian. In fact, the author’s attempt is to further develop the Austrian School of Economics teaching, trying to contribute in enhancing concepts and theories which are believed to be necessarily reshaped. The author connected his capital theory with a consistent entrepreneurship theory, which goes beyond the usual contraposition between Kirzner’s and Schumpeter’s entrepreneurial theories and builds a synthesis centred on the idea of entrepreneurship as a subset of Misesian action involving specific capital formation processes. Moreover, the author took into account the traditional version of the Austrian Business Cycle Theory and critically revised it, arguing that crises are not simply the consequences of monetary manipulations, but they are the natural consequence of every expansionary wave.
Shackle reminded us that a “good economist is like a bottle of wine. He must begin by having the luck to be laid down, as it were, in a vintage year, when he himself and his class companions are the high-quality stuff in which ideas and theories ferment and discourse sparkles in a glow of golden light. But this is not enough. He must mature”. This book helps guide readers to understand reality.

Русский мыслитель XIX века Никита Петрович Гиляров-Платонов оставил после себя собрание черновиков с экономическими заметками. В статье я постарался собрать его разрозненные идеи в цельные модели и определить место Гилярова-Платонова на общем дереве экономической мысли. Работа затрагивает вопросы теории цены, капитала и кредита, а также модели человека. Статья заняла I место на XX Конкурсе имени В.Н. Вениаминова, в секции «Экономические исследования: точки противоречий и точки развития».¶

Ссылка для цитирования:
Алексеев И.М. Об одной недооценённой, но весьма перспективной форме исследований: реконструкции по черновикам (на материалах Н. П. Гилярова-Платонова) // Вестник экономического научного общества студентов и аспирантов. Выпуск № 61. Санкт-Петербург : Издательство МБИ, 2022. 185 с.

THE MISMATCH THESIS: What do economists mean when they talk about "capital accumulation"? Surprisingly, the answer to this question is anything but clear, and it seems the most unclear in times of turmoil. Consider the "financial crisis" of the late 2000s. The very term already attests to the presumed nature and causes of the crisis, which most observers indeed believe originated in the financial sector and was amplified by pervasive financialization.

However, when theorists speak about a financial crisis, they don’t speak about it in isolation. They refer to finance not in and of itself, but in relation to the so-called real capital stock. The recent crisis, they argue, happened not because of finance as such, but due to a mismatch between financial and real capital. The world of finance, they complain, has deviated from and distorted the real world of accumulation.

According to the conventional script, this mismatch commonly appears as a "bubble", a recurring disease that causes finance to inflate relative to reality. The bubble itself, much like cancer, develops stealthily. It is extremely hard to detect, and as long as it’s growing, nobody – save a few prophets of doom – seems able to see it. It is only after the market has crashed and the dust has settled that, suddenly, everybody knows it had been a bubble all along. Now, bubbles, like other deviations, distortions and mismatches, are born in sin. They begin with "the public" being too greedy and "policy makers" too lax; they continue with "irrational exuberance" that conjures up fictitious wealth out of thin air; and they end with a financial crisis, followed by recession, mounting losses and rising unemployment – a befitting punishment for those who believed they could trick Milton Friedman into giving them a free lunch.

This "mismatch thesis" – the notion of a reality distorted by finance – is broadly accepted. In 2009, The Economist of London accused its readers of confusing "financial assets with real ones", singling out their confusion as the root cause of the brewing crisis. Real assets, or wealth, the magazine explained, consist of “goods and products we wish to consume" or of "things that give us the ability to produce more of what we want to consume". Financial assets, by contrast, are not wealth; they are simply "claims on real wealth". To confuse the inflation of the latter for the expansion of the former is the surest recipe for disaster.

The division between real wealth and financial claims on real wealth is a fundamental premise of political economy. This premise is accepted not only by liberal theorists, analysts and policymakers, but also by Marxists of various persuasions. And as we shall show below, it is a premise built on very shaky foundations.

When liberals and Marxists say that there is a mismatch between financial and real capital, they are essentially making, explicitly or implicitly, three related claims: (1) that these are indeed separate entities; (2) that these entities should correspond to each other; and (3) that, in the actual world, they often do not.

In what follows, we explain why these claims don’t hold water. To put it bluntly, neither liberals nor Marxists know how to compare real and financial capital, and the main reason is simple: they don’t know how to determine the magnitude of real capital to start with. The common, makeshift solution is to estimate this magnitude indirectly, by using the money price of capital goods – yet this doesn’t solve the problem either, since capital goods can have many prices and there is no way of knowing which of them, if any, is the “true" one. Last but not least, even if we turn a blind eye and allow for these logical impossibilities and empirical travesties to stand, the result is still highly embarrassing. As it turns out, financial accumulation not only deviates from and distorts real accumulation (or so we are told), it also follows an opposite trajectory. For more than two centuries, economists left and right have argued that capitalists – and therefore capitalism – thrive on "real investment" and the growth of "real capital". But as we shall see, in reality, the best time for capitalists is when their “real accumulation” tanks! . . .

Once the idea about the representation in the abstract side of the economy of capital in the real side of the economy was stated, the purpose of this paper is to offer a formal model of what this
“representational theory of capital” consists in. In a way, the idea that financial instruments are property titles representing claims over real goods is a commonsensical one if considered at microeconomic level; however, I argue that such concept of representation serves to foster our understanding at a macroeconomic level as well. Such claim, to my knowledge, is a novel one.

RESUMEN El presente artículo discute algunas dificultades insuperables que enfrenta la teoría marginalista del valor y la distribución para establecer una correspondencia con la observación, a la luz de las contribuciones de M. Allais en los años 1940, " Traité d'économie pure " (1943) y Économie et intérét (1947). El artículo revisa las razones que llevan a Allais desde, pasar a ofrecer la primera formalización del equilibrio general intertemporal (IGE) en una economía con horizonte finito en su Traité, hasta abandonar dicha noción de equilibrio en Économie, y adoptar en su lugar la noción de equilibrio estacionario. El artículo muestra i) que esas razones expresan una contradicción entre el tratamiento del factor capital como un vector heterogéneo de mercancías al interior del IGE, y la capacidad de éste de tener el rol tradicionalmente asignado al equilibrio como un centro de gravitación. ii) Que el concepto de equilibrio estacionario tampoco puede ser aceptado, ya que también enfrenta a la teoría con un obstáculo insuperable en el tratamiento del capital, en este caso como un factor homogéneo, concebido como una magnitud de valor. Se concluye que el problema general del tratamiento del capital al interior del enfoque marginalista es irresoluble, y obliga a buscar un enfoque alternativo. ABSTRACT The present article discusses some insurmountable difficulties faced by the marginal approach to value and distribution to establish a correspondence with observation, in the light of the contributions of M. Allais in the 1940s, " Traité d'économie pure " (1943) and Économie et intérét (1947). The article examines the reasons that lead Allais to replace the notion of intertemporal equilibrium in a finite horizon economy, used in the Traité, with the notion of stationary equilibrium, in the Économie. The article shows: i) that these reasons express a contradiction between the treatment of capital as a heterogeneous vector of capital goods within the notion of IGE, and the capacity of this equilibrium to have the role traditionally assigned to the notion of equilibrium as a centre of gravitation. ii) That the stationary equilibrium cannot be accepted either, since it also faces the theory with an insurmountable problem in the treatment of capital, in this case as a single factor, conceived as an amount of value. The conclusion is that the general problem relative to the treatment of capital within the marginal approach cannot be solved, and forces to find an alternative framework to study value and distribution.

Mentre negli anni Trenta del Novecento Keynes e Hayek sono le figure di maggior rilievo nell’ambito di un infuocato dibattito accademico su moneta e capitale, in cui Keynes coinvolge
anche e soprattutto l’italiano Piero Sraffa, può sembrare che l’economista austriaco abbia rinunciato ad una demolizione organica delle idee espresso dal suo rivale nella Teoria Generale del 1936. Lo stesso Hayek in futuro avrà occasione di lamentarsi di non aver dedicato un volume apposito alla critica delle teorie keynesiane. Tuttavia, come dimostrato in Sanz Bas
(2011), benché non si sia svolto un dibattito come quello sul Trattato sulla moneta, nei successivi lavori di Hayek è possibile individuare numerose critiche verso le più importanti conclusioni della nuova macroeconomia di Cambridge.
Nei decenni successivi, tuttavia, il ‘cavalierie austriaco’ di un nuovo dibattito Vienna-Cambridge è Ludwig M. Lachmann (1906-1990), già studente di Hayek alla London School of
Economics durante gli anni Trenta e successivamente professore a Johannesburg e New York.
Lachmann sarà poi uno dei protagonisti del revival austriaco post-1974 (anno del conferimento del premio Nobel a Hayek) e il fondatore, in seno alla moderna scuola austriaca, della corrente ermeneutica, opposta ai seguaci di Rothbard.
Nel riaccendere la controversia tra Vienna e Cambridge, Lachmann non attacca Keynes, di cui difende l’approccio soggettivista e l’accento sul ruolo delle aspettative, ma i suoi seguaci, la ‘nuova’ scuola di Cambrdige sviluppata da Joan Robinson e Piero Sraffa.
L’obiettivo della vita scientifica di Lachmann è infatti quello di edificare un nuovo paradigma economico, fondato sull’idea di processo di mercato, di aspettative e di società caleidoscopica (Shackle); è a tal fine che gli sviluppa il suo profondo attacco alla nuova macroeconomia di Cambridge, sorta dalle ceneri della seconda guerra mondiale negli anni Cinquanta e Sessanta del Novecento. La polemica contro la moderna macroeconomia emerge da tutti i suoi lavori, ma risulta particolarmente evidente in Lachmann (1973, 1986a). I suoi
obiettivi preferiti sono Sraffa e Joan Robinson, colpevoli, a dire di Lachmann, di aver abbandonato il soggettivismo keynesiano per sviluppare un nuovo approccio neo-ricardiano, accusato di eccessivo formalismo e di ignorare i microfondamenti che sono alla base di ogni scelta ed azione umana.
Ma l’attacco di Lachmann non è puramente epistemologico. Egli tenta di demolire tutti i pilastri della macroeconomia cantabrigense: il capitale come aggregato, l’equilibrio di lungo
periodo, l’assenza di innovazioni e mutamenti tecnologici, il concetto di tasso di profitto. Il punto di partenza dell’economista tedesco è dato dall’idea di una scienza economica basata sulle aspettative umane come unica origine possibile per le azioni umane. Un’origine, peraltro, mai doma, e continuamente influenzata dai mutamenti tecnologici e dall’evoluzione delle informazioni.

Pranjul Bhandari’s use of the Cobb-Douglas production function in “Decoding the Growth Target” (EPW, 16 March 2013) suffers from two sets of interrelated methodological problems. The first one is at the theoretical level and the second one is empirical in nature.

The purpose of the present article is to reflect on the intellectual origin of the close relationship between Austrian economics and libertarian philosophy. It suggests that the relationship in question is grounded in the fact that personal liberty and individual initiative, in addition to being significant moral values, are also crucial reservoirs of organizational efficiency and developmental drive. This implies that libertarian values can be disseminated, promoted, and implemented particularly effectively as a result of utilizing theoretical insights of the Austrian school, which is singularly committed to explaining the efficiency-enhancing features of the unhampered market process and entrepreneurial rivalry. In this connection, special attention is devoted to the liberty-promoting potential of Austrian contributions to the fields of capital, entrepreneurship, and the firm.

Франк Найт (1885-1972) е влиятелен социален учен, автор на множество публикации в областта на икономическата теория, философията и етиката. В икономическата теория той е познат преди всичко със своите анализи на неопределеността като условие за извличане на икономически печалби на конкурентните пазари. Тази концепция е само един от множеството му приноси, свързани с централната роля на пазара и ценовия механизъм. За разлика от други неокласически икономисти Найт е отявлен критик на пазара като водещ принцип при изграждането на обществата, тъй като го смята за неетична форма на организация. Той разглежда стопанството като социална система, а икономическия подход-като само един между многото в обществените науки. Найт е сред основателите на Чикагската школа, а сред студентите, които подготвя, има неедин Нобелов лауреат.

We examine both conceptually and in formal terms the contributions by the structuralist economist Marcelo Diamand, which all turn round the notion of unbalanced productive structure, and its implications on income distribution, the general price level and output dynamics in Latin American countries, with special focus on Argentina. We argue that Diamand’s work provides a very useful framework to understand why institutionally–historically-determined real wage and real exchange rates may, on the one hand, explain the relatively low productivity of the industrial sector and, on the other hand, cause devaluations to be both inflationary and contractionary, as it has been the case in many Latin American countries that attempted to initiate an industrialization process by import substitution.

Mobilität und territoriale Verankerung sind zwei komplementäre Praktiken, für die raumbezogenes Handlungsvermögen eingesetzt wird. Um dieses – von uns als neuer Begriff vorgeschlagene – Handlungsvermögen oder Teile davon zu konzipieren und empirisch zu quantifizieren, haben Soziologen und Geografen eigene Ansätze entwickelt (Kapitalmodell nach Bourdieu, Motilität, autochthones Kapital, Raum- und Räumlichkeitskapital oder Netzwerkkapital). Einige dieser Ansätze werden in diesem Beitrag betrachtet und verglichen. Es wird gefragt, ob die existierenden Konzepte helfen, das komplexe Zusammenspiel von Mobilität und Verankerung an mehreren Orten im Zuge multilokaler Wohnpraktiken zu verstehen.

According to neoclassical economic theory, club goods would be underproduced by the market in the absence of a monopoly of force capable of coercing every able member of society to contribute to their provision. By applying both the methodological tools developed by the Austrian School of Economics and the tools used to investigate the institutional robustness of various systems of political economy, I shall argue, first, that the neoclassical
characteristics of club goods are based on a number of false assumptions or unacceptable oversimplifications, and second, that even if they were correct as stated, they would not establish the desirability of the existence of a monopoly of force due to the existence of a more efficient, purely market-based alternative. Then I shall apply the results of my argument to the issue of the provision of law and defense, which appears to lend itself particularly
well to being a promising case study in this context.

The purpose of the present article is to explore the possibilities of a reconstruction of a Theory of Capital capable of taking into account the Reswitching phenomenon. In Section 1 a new measure of capital-time, for neoaustrian processes of production, is introduced. The main outcome of the use of this proposed new measure of capital is this: it can be shown that, even when Reswitching occurs, there is still always an inverse relationship between the rate of interest or profit and the quantity of capital-time. In Section 2 the results of Section 1 are extended for the case of two good technologies examples. In Section 3 a surrogate production process is introduced. By developing this surrogate production process it can be shown that in general there is an inverse relationship between the interest rate and the quantity of surrogate capital per man, the surrogate capital/output ratio, and between the interest rate and the newly defined steady-state consumption per capita. Section 4 presents further comments on the results of the previous sections. Section 5 introduces numerical examples.

In Hayek's last attempt at a formal revision of his capital theory, found in his obscenely complex book The Pure Theory of Capital, there exists two barely readable chapters on the productivity of investment structures. Hayek indicates that, viewing production primarily from an input function, the relation that exists between the particular structure of investment,

Cet article vise à démontrer que la richesse et la pauvreté ne peuvent être traitées isolément, puisqu'elles sont les faces d'une même médaille formant un ensemble irréductible.L'analyse de la richesse est indissociable de la pauvreté, car la concentration de la richesse engendre l'exploitation, qui constitue un élément générateur de la pauvreté. Cela revient à dire que le dogme selon lequel la promotion de la concentration des richesses et des revenus serait le moyen du développement économique et de la lutte contre la pauvreté est une sophisme capitaliste. On pense généralement que les causes de la misère et de la pauvreté sont liées aux inadaptations familiales, à l'impréparation scolaire de l'individu au monde du travail et à son incapacité à entreprendre. Les causes de la pauvreté sont liées aux inégalités sociales résultant de la concentration des richesses dans le capitalisme. Existe-t-il une solution qui mène à la réduction des inégalités sociales ? La réponse est que la fin des inégalités sociales ne sera atteinte que lorsque l'État providence sera mis en place sur le modèle de celui pratiqué dans les pays scandinaves avec l'adaptation nécessaire à chaque pays, car c'est le système social le plus abouti jamais mis en place dans le monde car incarne les éléments les plus positifs du socialisme et du capitalisme.

Resumen:
La monografía discute los principales métodos de evaluación, análisis y exposición de la capacidad intangible de la empresa, tales como los conceptos y su lugar en la contabilidad tradicional. Este estudio explora no sólo los conceptos de los fenómenos intangibles, sino que también se extiende a las formas de medir, evaluar, analizar y demostrar tales hechos. El objetivo de este trabajo fue verificar la necesidad gerencial e informativa de la contabilidad de reconocer o administrar la capacidad inmaterial del patrimonio, así como establecer cómo esta forma podría ser reconocida y demostrada como fuente de agregación a la riqueza patrimonial. Al final de ese trabajo, se concluye que los informes contables para la gestión y reconocimiento del fondo de comercio son medidas indispensables para la agregación al valor efectivo de las empresas. Este estudio afirma haber encontrado una solución importante, pero no definitiva, para la interpretación del aumento del valor del capital por la calidad de la información inmaterial de su fondo sustancial como base imprescindible para la toma de decisiones.

Abstract:
The monograph discusses the main methods for evaluation, analysis and presentation of the intangible capacity of the company, such as concepts and their place in traditional accounting. This study explores not only the concepts of intangible phenomena, but also extends to the ways of measuring, evaluating, analyzing
and demonstrating such facts. The objective of this work was to verify the managerial and informative need of accounting to recognize or manage the intangible capacity of the equity, as well as to establish how this could be recognized and demonstrated as a source of value-adding to the patrimonial wealth. At the end of this work, it is concluded that the accounting reports for the management and recognition of the goodwill are indispensable measures for the effective value-adding of the companies. This study claims to have found an important, but not definitive, solution for the interpretation of the increase in the value of capital according to the quality of the intangible information of its substantial fund as an essential basis for decision making.

Among the recent interventions in the capital controversy, the debate between Paola Potestio and Kurz & Salvadori has raised important issues. We agree with Potestios rejection of the legitimacy of a value endowment of capital but we disagree with her dismissal of the relevance of reswitching and reverse capital deepening: these phenomena are very important because they undermine the demand-side role of the conception of capital as a single factor. For the marginal approach to be plausible, this demand-side role had to imply the stability of the savings-investment market even in shorter time frames than those required by a complete adaptation of the form of capital; this was taken by Marshall to authorize doing without a given endowment of value capital, which opened the door to the shift to the modern neo-Walrasian versions of the marginal approach. With proof from Hayek, Hicks, Malinvaud, and Lucas we argue that a continuing belief in traditional time-consuming marginalist disequilibrium adjustments based on capital-labour substitution is the hidden reason why the claim often made by contemporary marginalist economists, that the economy can be assumed to be all the time on the equilibrium-growth path, is not found patently unacceptable. The true microfoundation of DSGE macromodels is not intertemporal equilibrium theory, but the time-consuming adjustment mechanisms on whose basis the marginal approach was born and accepted, and on whose basis monetarism was then able to reassert a pre-Keynesian view of the working of the economy.

The paper discusses aspects of the triangular debate between Hayek, Keynes, and Sraffa on economic crises, business cycles and the role of capital theory in an analysis of these phenomena. It is argued that Sraffa was both critical of Hayek's monetary overinvestment theory and Keynes's use of the concept of commodity rates of interest Sraffa had employed in his criticism of Hayek and of Keynes's theory of liquidity preference.

THE MISMATCH THESIS: What do economists mean when they talk about "capital accumulation"? Surprisingly, the answer to this question is anything but clear, and it seems the most unclear in times of turmoil. Consider the "financial crisis" of the late 2000s. The very term already attests to the presumed nature and causes of the crisis, which most observers indeed believe originated in the financial sector and was amplified by pervasive financialization. However, when theorists speak about a financial crisis, they don’t speak about it in isolation. They refer to finance not in and of itself, but in relation to the so-called real capital stock. The recent crisis, they argue, happened not because of finance as such, but due to a mismatch between financial and real capital. The world of finance, they complain, has deviated from and distorted the real world of accumulation. According to the conventional script, this mismatch commonly appears as a "bubble", a r...

Capital theory controversies and ‘paradoxes’ showed that, due to price-feedback effects, the wage-production price-profit rate curves may display shapes inconsistent with the requirements of the neoclassical theory of value and distribution. Subsequent findings on a number of quite diverse actual single-product economies suggested that the impact of those effects is of limited empirical significance. This paper argues that, by focusing on the distributions of the eigenvalues and singular values of the system matrices, we can further study these issues and derive some meaningful theoretical results consistent with the available empirical evidence. Consequently, the real paradox, in the sense of knowledge vacuum and, thus, requiring further research, is the distributions of the characteristic values and not really the ‘paradoxes in capital theory’.

This article aims to demonstrate that wealth and poverty cannot be treated in isolation, since they are the sides of the same coin forming an irreducible set. The analysis of wealth cannot be dissociated from poverty, as the concentration of wealth generates exploitation, which is a founding element of poverty. This means saying that the dogma that promoting the concentration of wealth and income would be the means for economic development and overcoming poverty is a capitalist fallacy. There is a general thought that the causes of misery and poverty are linked to family maladjustments, the individual's educational unpreparedness for the world of work and the individual's lack of capacity to undertake. The causes of poverty are related to social inequalities resulting from the concentration of wealth in capitalism. Is there a solution that leads to the reduction of social inequality? The answer is that the end of social inequality will only be achieved when the Welfare State is implemented along the lines of that practiced in Scandinavian countries with the necessary adaptation to each country, because it is the most successful social system ever implemented in the world because embodies the most positive elements of both socialism and capitalism.

Este artigo tem por objetivo demonstrar que que riqueza e pobreza não podem ser tratados de forma isolada, uma vez que são as faces de uma mesma moeda formando um conjunto irredutível. A análise da riqueza não pode ser dissociada da pobreza, pois a concentração da riqueza gera a exploração que se constitui elemento fundante da pobreza. Isto significa dizer que se trata de uma falácia capitalista o dogma de que a promoção da concentração da riqueza e da renda seria o meio para o desenvolvimento econômico e a superação da pobreza. Há um pensamento generalizado de que as causas da miséria e da pobreza estariam vinculadas a desajustes familiares, ao despreparo educacional do indivíduo para o mundo do trabalho e à falta de capacidade do indivíduo para empreender. As causas da pobreza estão relacionadas com as desigualdades sociais resultantes da concentração da riqueza no capitalismo. Será que existe solução que leve â redução da desigualdade social? A resposta é a de que o fim da desigualdade social só será alcançada quando for implantado o Estado de Bem Estar social nos moldes do praticado nos países escandinavos com a necessária adaptação a cada país porque é o mais bem sucedido sistema social já implantado no mundo porque incorpora os elementos mais positivos tanto do socialismo como do capitalismo.

The paper critically examines the dominant neoclassical views on the adoption of mandatory Fully Funded (FF) pension schemes as a partial or complete substitute for the unfunded Pay-as-you-go (PAYG) type. According to this view, such a transition will have the positive real effect of endowing future generations with higher capital and output per head, since it should cause a once and for all increase in aggregate saving and the capital stock. This would prepare the economy for future demographic developments. We examine three obstacles to such a claim. To begin with, the reform may fail to boost workers ’ marginal propensity to save, since workers may contract their voluntary saving to compensate for the larger mandatory saving to FF schemes. Second, if PAYG’s payroll contributions are reduced and diverted to Pension Funds, the larger private saving supply will be balanced by lower government saving, if the government is committed to honouring the current pension payments. Third, Ke...

n recent years, there have been a number of new developments in what came to be known as the "Capital Theory Debates". The debates took place mainly during the 1960s as a result of Piero Sraffa's critique of the neoclassical theory according to which the prices of factors of production directly depend on their relative scarcities. Sraffa showed that when income distribution changes, there are many complexities developed within the economic system impacting on prices in ways which are not possible to predict. These debates were revisited in the 1980s and again more recently, along with a parallel literature that has developed among neoclassical economists and has also looked at the impact of shocks on an economy.

　

This book summarizes the debates and issues around the theory of capital and brings to the fore the more recent developments. It also pinpoints the similarities and differences between the various approaches and critically evaluates them in light of available empirical evidence. The focus of the book is on the price trajectories induced by changes in income distribution and the resulting shape of the wage rates of profit curves and frontier. These issues are central to areas such as microeconomics, international trade, growth, technological change and macro stability analysis. Each chapter starts with the theoretical issues involved, followed by their formalization and subsequently with their operationalization. More specifically, the variables of the classical theory of value and distribution are rigorously defined and quantified using actual input–output data from a number of major economies, but mainly from the USA, over long stretches of time. The empirical results are not only consistent with the anticipations of the theory but also further inform and therefore strengthen its predictive content raising new significant questions.

The concept of intellectual property (IP) has been variously criticized as incompatible with natural rights and detrimental to the dissemination of innovations. In this paper I argue that it can be criticized on an even more fundamental level-namely as a praxeological impossibility. More specifically, it is suggested that since ideas are not economic goods, but preconditions of action, and since physical goods transformed by ideas become as heterogeneous (and thus as intellectually unique) as the individuals who enact such transformations, no economic goods can be meaningfully designated as appropriable in virtue of embodying the objectively definable value of one's intellectual labor. In view of the above, I subsequently suggest that IP protection laws constitute an exceptionally arbitrary and thus exceptionally disruptive form of interventionism directed against the very essence of the entrepreneurial market process.

The paper deals with the continuities and discontinuities between some
classical, Austrian and neo-Austrian authors with regard first to the theory of capital and then to the theory of entrepreneurship. Part I focuses on the elements of continuity between the classical and the Austrian theory of capital. These elements have been singled out by dealing first with the distinction between individual and national capital;
and then with the difference between the resulting circulating-fixed capital and free-invested capital distinctions in the light, first, of the concept of roundaboutness and, then, of the method of vertical integration. Part II focuses on the elements of continuity between the Austrian theory of individual behaviour and the classical theory of national wealth. The distinctions between logical and historical time and between economics of time and economics in time are used to assess the links between the theory of capital as developed by the classics and Böhm-Bawerk, on the one hand, and the theory of entrepreneurship as developed by the neo-Austrians, on the other.

Speaking of Böhm-Bawerk’s theory of interest and period of production, Schumpeter argues that these are just “two elements in a comprehensive model of the economic process, the roots of which may be discerned in Ricardo and which parallels that of Marx” (1954, p. 846). Leaving aside the theory of value (on which it is impossible to find authors as far apart as Ricardo and Marx, on the one hand, and Böhm-Bawerk, on the other), it remains to be seen whether, or the extent to which, Schumpeter’s statement holds at least with regard to the theory of capital (as distinct from the theory of interest) and to its crucial concept of (the higher productivity of) time-consuming methods of production. If one focuses exclusively on this theory and concept, one can realize that these “roots” can be noticed not only in Ricardo but also in other classical authors in so far as they shared, or tried to improve, the theory of capital inherited from their leader: Adam Smith. In this sense Böhm-Bawerk’s theory may be viewed as a link not only between the classical and the Austrian theory of capital but also as a condition for the further developments of this theory carried out in our times by John Hicks, on the one hand, and by the Austrian economists of recent generation, on the other.
This paper is accordingly divided in two Parts. Part I will be focused on the similarities (and dissimilarities) between Adam Smith (as leader of the classical theory of capital), Böhm-Bawerk (as leader of the corresponding Austrian theory) and Hicks (as leader of the derived neo-Austrian approach to this theory). Part II, on the other hand, will be focused on the dissimilarities (and similarities) between Böhm-Bawerk and the following Austrian authors who eventually turned the theory of capital and of its principal agent, the capitalist, inherited from the classics into the theory of entrepreneurship and of its exclusive agent, the entrepreneur.
Reasons of space will prevent us from dwelling on all the converging or conflicting contributions by different scholars in this multi-directional development of the theory. But whether or not discussed in this paper, all these contributions seem to support the idea that the theory of capital is like a single building who may look very different depending on the angle from which the observer looks at it.

Abstract
Capital is defined mathematically as the abstract meaning brought to life in the two phases of the development of 'transferable representations,' which are the legal, financial, and scientific instruments we take for granted in almost every aspect of our daily routines. The first, conceptual and gestational, and the second, parturitional and maturational, phases in the creation and development of capital are contrasted. Human, social, and natural forms of capital should be brought to life with at least the same amounts of energy and efficiency as have been invested in manufactured and liquid capital, and property. A mathematical law of living capital is stated. Two examples of well-measured human capital are offered. The paper concludes with suggestions for the ways that future research might best capitalize on the mathematical definition of capital.

If ‘capital’ is the set of produced means of production, (almost) all production is capitalistic. Thus, the presence of capital in this sense can at most be (and in the history of economic doctrines was taken to represent) a necessary condition for defining capitalistic production. Differences arose as to the relative emphasis put on the social or techno-economic aspects of such transformation processes.

The idea that capital theory might lead economists to discover forms of 'paradoxical' behaviour emerged in the economic literature of the 1960s largely as an outcome of developments in the field of production theory (linear production models leading to enquiries into discrete and ...