Robert Vienneau: Thoughts Economics

I have been considering a case in which a simple Labor Theory of Value (LTV) is a valid theory of prices of production. When, for each technique, all processes have the same organic composition of capital, prices of production are proportional to labor values. Given labor values and direct labor coefficients in each industry, an uncountably infinite number of techniques - as specified by a Leontief input-output specified in terms of physical inputs per physical outputs - satisfies these...

I claim that the pattern analysis I have defined can be used to generate additional fluke switch points. I am particularly interested in switch points that are flukes in more than one way (local patterns of co-dimension higher than one) and fluke switch points that are combined with other fluke switch points or some aspect of other switch points (global patterns). I have already generated some examples, not always with pattern analysis. Fluke switch points of higher co-dimension A switch...

Figure 1: Variation of Switch Points with Time1.0 Introduction This post presents another local pattern of co-dimension one. I have conjectured that only four types of local patterns of co-dimension one exist (a reswitching pattern, a three-technique pattern, a pattern across the wage axis, and a pattern over the axis for the rate of profits). In this conjecture, I meant to implicitly limit the rate of profits at which switch points occur to be non-negative and not exceeding the maximum...

Figure 1: Physical Production Data as a Side Route1.0 Introduction One way of reading the first volume of Marx's Capital is that labor values provide a foundation, upon which the structure of prices of production and, eventually market prices are based. I find that, for example, Joseph Schumpeter presents Marx's work in this way. Another reading takes both labor values and prices as founded on physical data specifying the technique in use. Ian Steedman, as illustrated in Figure 2,...

Figure 1: A Partitioning Of The Parameter Space1.0 Introduction I consider here a case where two different techniques have the same wage curve. A simple labor of theory of value describes prices in the case under consideration. I treat the labor coefficient and another coefficient of production for a process in one technique as parameters. And I look at what happens when they vary. A note on terminology: on the basis of expert advice and peer review, I am no longer using the term...

Steve Keen and others, in a showy bit of performance art in London, have called for a reformation of economics. Imitating Luther, they have nailed some theses to a door. Here's some links: Guardian article Letters to the editor in response. New Weather Institute blog post. 33 Theses. An article by Ben Chu, in the Independent saying, more or less, let's not get carried away. I do not know who Charles Mudede is or what his platform is. His style is more popular and very different from mine....

Richard Thaler espouses an incorrect imperfectionist viewpoint. If only all markets were competitive, agents did not suffer from limitations in calculating and lack of information, etc., all markets would clear. Or so he says, at least when it comes to the labor market: Perceptions of fairness ... help explain a long-standing puzzle in economics: in recessions, why don't wages fall enough to keep everyone employed? In a land of Econs, when the economy goes into a recession and firms face...

Unlearning Economics adds a comment to a long-ago thread on the ignorance of Henry Hazlitt. Tim Worstall lies (I informed Worstall at least a decade ago of the existence of economists who do not agree): "These old things about supply and demand in Econ 101 really are true, when the price of something rises then people do tend to buy less of it. Force up the minimum wage and people will buy less minimum wage labour. All economists would agree to the basic idea, the discussion becomes at...

Figure 1: A Labor Demand Function1.0 Introduction I am not sure the above graph works. I could draw three-dimensional graphs in PowerPoint, for models specified with algebra, where relative sizes are indefinite. But, I would need to be able to draw parallel lines, and so on. This post presents a model of extensive rent, with one produced commodity. A labor demand function, for a given rate of profits, graphs real wages versus employment. The resulting function is a non-increasing step...

Figure 1: A Bifurcation Diagram1.0 Introduction I have been looking at how bifurcation analysis can be applied to the choice of technique in models in which all capital is circulating capital. In my sense, a bifurcation occurs when a switch point appears or disappears off the wage frontier. A question arises for me about how to apply or visualize bifurcations in models with land, fixed capital, and so on. This post starts to investigate this question by looking at a numerical example of...