Aspects of the theory of investment in the work of Kalecki and some of his followers

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Title:: Aspects of the theory of investment in the work of Kalecki and some of his followers: from Steindl to Wood

Description:: It is well-known that, after repeated attempts at analysis, Kalecki considered the investment decision as the problem which remained to be properly resolved in the interpretation of capitalism. He had early rejected Keynes' emphasis on an independent role for banking policy and for conditions in financial markets (a subject which I will be treating in a separate essay), and instead he emphasised internal finance or cash-flow. This substaintial difference aside, Kalecki's work on investment subdivides into two strands: on the one hand the determinants of company profitability, and on the other the linkage between current profitability and investment decisions. The former concerns technical progress and manufactured pricing under imperfect competition. The latter provides the continuing theme in Kalecki's work, viz., the multiplier-accelerator or captal-stock adjustment mechanism: investment is associated with prospective profitability, prospective with current profitability, current profitability with pressure on capacity, and pressure on capacity with a lack of earlier investment. Various aspects of Kalecki's suggestions under both headings have been explored - here I consider Steindl, Sylos-Labini, and A. Wood. But these explorations do not achieve a satisfactory synthesis between Kalecki's two strands. (Auszug S.1)

Subject:: Kalecki, Michal <1899-1970> Investitionstheorie Preistheorie Unternehmenstheorie

Related work:: Bartoli, Gloria M.; Lecaldano, Edoardo: Microeconomic Foundations of Aggregate Behaviour of Firms in Kalecki and Some of His Followers. In: Economic Notes: economic review of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena. Vol. 14, 1985, Issue 1, S. 43-62

JEL Classification:: D21 [Firm Behavior: Theory] E11 [General Aggregative Models: Marxian, Sraffian, Kaleckian]