Long Wave Economic Theory Research Papers (original) (raw)

This article maps urban reform movements onto 'long waves:' consistently patterned technological and economic cycles that repeat over time. Using the example of the United States, we argue that periodizing urban reform movements in this way reveals surprising similarities in different historical contexts. Across cycles, two tropes repeatedly appear: discourses of efficiency, that propose technological solutions to urban problems, and those of beauty, that turn to nature to improve social arrangements through design. Within cycles, reform discourses follow a similar pattern in each case: they roll out amidst the excitement of an emergent socio-technical paradigm, but, used as guidelines for its institutionalization, create new social problems even as they aim to remedy the old. In each wave planners and decision-makers try to out-engineer and out-design inequality (and other social problems), and each time they fail. We use this analytic to historicize the contemporary 'smart' and 'sustainable' city, arguing that it is only the latest in a series of beauty and efficiency solutions to urban problems, and its promises should be taken with more than a grain of salt.

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- Urban History, Urban Planning, Sustainable Cities, Long Wave Economic Theory

Marx's 'Capital' points towards a coherent and multi-faceted explanation of capitalist crises. What Marx describes as "revolutions in value" encompass the countervailing factors, as well as the tendential fall in the rate of profit, and also depreciation in the value of fixed capital. Together they can explain much of capitalism's economic history. The first article develops a hypothesis that the savings capitalists make on the fixed capital element of constant capital - particularly investments in machinery and equipment - accentuate the instability of capitalism. The profits of investors at the beginning of the business cycle are progressively undermined by competitors who invest later in the cycle in cheaper and more efficient versions of the same technology (as a result of continual productivity increases). This "moral depreciation" (as Marx termed it) may be critical in generating the short-term five-to-ten-year business cycle. The second article proposes that the differential impact of productivity changes on the composition of capital are the reason why the dynamism of capitalism varies over the long-term (the periodicity of capitalism's "long-waves"). An analysis of models, taken from Guglielmo Carchedi and Andrew Kliman, suggests that the faster the productivity of labour is consistently increased, the more likely it is that the average rate of profit will fall.

- by Nick Rogers
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- Economics, Marxist Economics, Marxist theory, Marxist political economy

The Schumpeterian « Theory of economic development » cannot be isolated from the evolution of Schumpeter's thought on innovation and its different manifestations. The importance gained by innovation as an essential rule of the competitive and strategic game, the aim of the newly introduced industrial policies, the relevance of economic cycles in the history of capitalism seem to highlight the perspicacity and the pertinence of Schumpeter's vision of which «Theory of economic development» is the opening work.

- by Stefano Lucarelli
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- Entrepreneurship, Economics, Marxism, Economic Development

This paper attempts to bring a contribution to the relatively recent debate about the legitimacy of Global Governance among authors as Bodansky (1999), Bernstein (2004), Buchanan & Keohane (2006) and Paterson (2010). According to most of those authors, the questions of legitimacy of Global Governance arise because of the process of Globalization and the need for strengthening its institutionalization. In this paper, however, I will try to defend that this questions exactly arise because of a downturn in the trend of Globalization, claiming there is a wave-pattern in Globalization. I claim that Global governance is the result of the institutionalization of dialectical process between accumulation and the need for legitimation which has always been a central tension in the reproduction of the capitalist system (Paterson 2010).
This paper defends that the rising contestation of globalization by social movements in the core of the world-system and the rising appeal for “democratization” of the institutions of Global Governance is the consequence of an underlying dynamic of the accumulation process, provoking a legitimation crisis. The continuing phases of capital accumulation on a global scale and the waves of resistance against it, create a wave-pattern of legitimation and delegitimation of Global Governance. These play a crucial role in producing the future of the world system. Analysing them is crucial to understand past present and future developments. (Chase-Dunn & Gills 2003, p.6)

The securitization market is influenced by many factors. This paper examines the influence of economic long waves (Kondratieff waves) on the securitization market and securitization issuances. By doing this, the paper allows a glimpse... more

- by Martijn Sinninghe Damste
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- Securitization, Kondratiev, Securitisation, Long Wave Economic Theory
- by Duccio Basosi
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- Capitalism, 20th century (History), Hegemony, Giovanni Arrighi

This essay here has two goals. The first is to clarify, whenever possible, the sources of Long Waves (LWs) or Kondratieff Waves (K-waves). The second is to show that the wars can be one of principal sources of path-breaking technologies that support Long Waves for the technological, economic and social change over the long run. As a matter of fact, a fundamental problem in the field of economic growth is how LWs emerge and sustain economic and social change. The vast literature has analyzed several characteristics and factors of LWs. However, the root causes of LWs are hardly known. This study shows that the possible sources of LWs are due to structural change of major warfare that generate General Purpose Technologies and clusters of innovation for technological, economic and social change over time. In fact, the war is a major agent of change that generates both huge demand-side effects with expansionary policies and powerful supply-side effects based on learning by doing in strategic productions, spin-off and technological spillover from military R&D (period of the “creative destruction”). In particular, major wars generate clusters of new technology (in troughs of LWs) that support the subsequent recovery-prosperity phase of LWs with new radical and incremental innovations, their commercial introduction, and widespread adoption in markets. These main factors drive the evolution of LWs and generate technological, productivity and economic growth in society over the long run. Overall, then, the main aim of this study is to clarify, whenever possible one of main driving forces of LWs and economic change in society.