What Marx Means Today

18 Pages Posted: 10 Jun 2017

See all articles by Hans-Werner Sinn

Hans-Werner Sinn

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)

Date Written: May 22, 2017

Abstract

Marx made significant contributions to macroeconomics, laying the grounds for both Keynes’s theory of aggregate demand and Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction. His law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall parallels Alvin Hansen’s theory of secular stagnation which has recently received much attention among scholars studying the financial crises in Japan, the US and the Eurozone. This article argues that part of the new stagnation does not result from a natural exhaustion of investment possibilities, but from an overly loose central bank monetary policy that keeps zombie banks and their zombie clients alive and blocks the emergence of new start-up firms.

Keywords: creative destruction, falling rate of profit, secular stagnation

JEL Classification: B140, B510, E110, E320, E520

Suggested Citation

Sinn, Hans-Werner, What Marx Means Today (May 22, 2017). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 6463, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2983703 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2983703

Hans-Werner Sinn (Contact Author)

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